When you write news for the online media or for the one that has a paper support, there are a few things you should remember. Among them are:
- If you want to write clearly, you also have to think clearly. This applies to all the journalists and in general, to all the people who like to write. If your thougths are not clearly expressed in your mind, how are going to explain your readers the plot, the intrigue, the initiating action and so on? How are going to tell them who the real killer was. Simply by saying his name? No, you have to bring a little more to your story. Read the news written by the persons you love in this field and try to take some pieces of advice from them.
- Writing is a process and you must follow certain steps when you perform it. I said before in another article that your story, article or piece of news must have the following parts, which are contained by the article’s structure: the introduction, body and conclusion.
- When you see a certain piece of information, that you would like to bring into the attention of your audience, in other words, you are more or less asked to write about that person or that event, you have to focus on something, that no other journalist befor you did. Here appears another problem, which must be overcame. If there is a person that writes the news before you did, your boss could be angry. But for example, if you know about CES, which is going to be in Las Vegas, you can go there (or you can travel there only by thought) and interview some people there, check out the products and write reviews about products that seemed uninteresting to many of the people out there and they definiteley aren’t, since they are present at CES.
- Make sure you understand the things about you discuss. That is why when you want to write a medical review over something, you find it difficult, if you are not working or worked in this field. Those who write about tehnology usually are trained to do that or simply have a passion for technology. Those who write about flowers, probably have a house filled with them and so on.
- Read the information about which you are going to write a new article (in these conditions, you are a journalist that usually don’t interviews people, but takes the information from other sources) several times. Go and see what other opinions about that information are present in the online environment and whan you write the news, you can add your own opinions. If this is according to the site policies. If you are not allowed to express yourself, but simply to write the piece of news, that is exactly what you will do. There are voices that say that a true journalist should be impartial when relating the news, thus should not express his or her feelings about a news. But I guess that in the end of the article, you may write a few words from the bottom of your heart. Try to avoid this when you present news about politics or the economic system in the country. You could attract people with different opinions than yours and this could lead to a drop in the number of those who read your site.
- Those who want to create a news that will win an award for how good it was written, can create diagrams and charts that will help them write better. This is not the case for those who have to write considering the news from other sources. You simply have to read three sources, to see if they mention the same event or situation and then to create with your own words, a news that will be very similar to those read before. Never put words from your mouth into the mouth of the people present there. For example, don’t write: “Mr Hjvbcjbvh said the following: ‘The economy is on the best track ever seen in the last 20 years’ “, if that man said: “The economy is on a good track”. Be very careful with these nuances, because the people who write you, will start worring for nothing or being happy for nothing, simply because you don’t mention the exact words of that person.
- Use as much as materials you can get to write a very good piece of news. The articles that have no obvious connection to that news in particular, but which have a certain connection to it (very little obvious) may offer new insights into the news.
- Make a list of ideas that are going to be used inside your article and decide in which order are you gonna write them. This list will enable you to see the connections between your ideas. This is the moment in which those who prefer diagrams or charts can use them.
- Begin with a statement, with an argument, for example, you write about Steve Jobs now, due to his medical problems. The statement can be made of several phrases.
- The body of the article should be brief anf clear. Especially if you are writing news, the information presented must be short. A perfect news consists of three of four paragraphs. In each paragraph, you will develop one of the ideas of which we mentioned before, when we discussed about diagrams. Each paragraph should contain its topic sentence, which expresses the main idea of the paragraph, again I come and tell, the ideas mentioned in the charts, if you used charts. The sentences that come after the topic sentence have to support it and contain examples, quotations or incidents related to the subject about which you talk in your story.
- The conclusion of the story must be formed by a single paragraph. Now it is the time for you to re-state in different words, what you said at the beginning of your article. The thesis statement from the introductory paragraph must be written once again, but in other words.
- Try to find out what the author from where you take the information wanted to say, what the other authors wanted to express also (considering that you take the information from three sources) and express your own thougths related to the subject, if this is allowed by the site policy.
- Be brief and stick to the point. These were the rules to writing a perfect piece of news. I’ll come back with more information, but after I will find the proper occasion. Right now, I consider that I said enough in this article. Thanks for reading and stay connected to our site, because we bring you a lot of fresh news and great info.
