Chapter 5- Newswriting Rules

1.) Inverted pyramid- the format of news stories, the framework, the blueprints. This helps writers write good stories to get readers' attentions.
It should look kind of like this-

In Jeremy Caplan's class at CCBC (community college I transfered from)-
Important information
More details
More details
More details

What the textbook says-
Important information
Interesting, colorful details
Remaining facts

It looks like an upside down triangle or pyramid.

2.) Delayed lead- doesn't show the major facts of a story to a reader and catches the reader's attention more creatively, usually when the information is more interesting than important.
Other names for this term: feature or soft leads
Towerlight example: The Peruvian Amazon is known for being one of the greatest places on Earth to find a biologically diverse environment. - Daniel Gross

3.) Nut graf- adds more important information than the lead can handle, helps the reader understand why the story's important.
*usually written directly after the lead

4.) In AP style, the when should be placed right after the verb.
Examples:
The Student Government vice president called Thursday... (correct)
The Student Government vice president Thursday called... (confusing title, wrong)
The Student Government vice president called......... Thursday. (sounds like the VP just did this on Thursday, also wrong)

5.) Summary/chronology story- story written in an order of how something happened, uses a summary lead, sums up everything.

6.) Crime issue in writing- Until the person is charged with the crime, it's best not to report the suspect's name. If the name(s) is(are) reported in the story, the suspect(s) may not keep a good reputation anymore and you could get sued for libel.
After someone's been charged with the crime, be careful with the words committed, convicted, allegedly, and charged. If the person was charged with the crime but no one is sure if the person actually committed those actions, it's best not to use the word allegedly. It may be better to say that the person was charged with those infractions.
And when writing the crime story, always describe what happened at the scene first without putting in adjectives or opinion. The suspect's name shouldn't be mentioned in the beginning of the story.

7.) Multiple element- 2-3 different ideas competing for attention, all 2 or 3 ideas are lead-worthy and don't really explain each other.
*Deal with those big elements only one at a time; break it down.

8.) Second day story- follow up stories from the first story that was printed a day or a few before, but require a complete rewrite of the first day stories.

9.) Correlation vs. Causation (big time issue- don't get these two confused!)
Correlation- events that happen at the exact same time
Causation- something causes something else (like a domino effect- event causes event)
Make sure you get your facts straight and check your sources to get the correct insight of the events. Be careful of making assumptions! You may be wrong about something.

10.) Facts to check:
*Names (spelled correctly)
*Dates
*Places
*Corporate (company) names
*Titles
*Numbers
*Photos/graphics

11.) Rules for using quotes-
- Make sure the quote adds to the story.
- Double check that quoted words are the exact words from the person.
- Paraphrase when you have to.
- Partial quotes also work fine for stories. Ex- Thomason said that the LeaderShape experience gave him "the best college experience I could ever get."
- Place attribution carefully. When writing a quote in, use "she said" or "he said" after a complete thought or sentence.
- Stick to "(person) said", not "said (person)." Why? Everything must ALWAYS be in SVO (subject verb object) format.
- Make sure you know who's talking in the quote! When more than one person is quoted in a story, attribution to the quote should be before the first quote of every new speaker. Don't confuse your readers!
And as always, the word 'said' works best for news stories when writing quotes, no matter what. Try not to use any other word than 'said' when using a quote.

Leads, Continued

4.) A state representative is sponsoring a bill increasing penalties for identity theft, making the crime a felony and allowing credit card holders to check for stolen numbers recently.

5.) The state Commission on Crime and Delinquency awarded $1.2 million to Towson school district's at risk program, the Maryland Department of Education said.

And Now... Practice Headliner Leads

I'll admit, it's much harder to write leads under 20 words rather than 30 words when given a whole load of important information! I tried very hard to get these leads as short as possible.

1.) My lead: BALTIMORE-- Mayor Sabrina Datolli's husband was injured in a three vehicle accident Thursday afternoon.
Next sentence: His car was struck broadside by a pickup truck and then was pushed into the path of another vehicle at the intersection of Warren and Davidson avenues.

2.) Lead: City council members dicussed creating a local board overseeing the downtown historic district's building constructions.
Next paragraph: Council members Sandra Gandolf and Alice Cyeler addressed the matter to the city's planning and zoning commission at the regular monthly meeting. However, they wondered whether or not it was legally possible and if they could muster enough votes to support their desire for implementing the changes.

3.) WASHINGTON-- The Senate's approval of a nuclear waste storage plan will allow safe storage for over 77,000 tons of radioactive waste, the head of the Department of Energy said. (30 words)

Towson University gets a Second Life

Trial news story--- (A friend of mine already wrote a news story on this event for the Towerlight a week ago. This is just a sample.)

The TU Second Life team along with some assistants from University Marketing, held an event at Paws in the University Union last Thursday, offering a free demonstration of a new software program, Second Life.

Second Life is a free software internet program that is still currently under construction. It gives a 3D virtual environment where people can network and communicate online, according to Mike Moore, a Graduate Assistant of Towson's Interactive Media Design program. Moore said that people using Second Life can also go to lectures, classes, and meetings electronically.

The TU Second Life team includes Center for Interactive Media Design program director Bridget Sullivan, lecturer James Braman, and a couple other collegues who plan to introduce Second Life to students and get them interested in it. "If someone has an interest in technologies, they should try it," Sullivan said.

Many students came by to play with the program to test it out. The Second Life team spread out computers, each one showing a demonstration of the software program, over one section of the entrance to Paws.

Juan Rodas, another Graduate Assistant, displayed a demo of the program on a projector against a screen. "It's supposed to be the next step for the internet," he said, explaining what Second Life was. "You can go to Google and explore it with an artificial character." Not only was this just an artificial character that could explore, it could walk around, jump, and fly to different areas across the screen.

Second Life can also be used in careers. Braman said that Second Life newspapers and magazines were up and coming and the team was looking for journalists to write for those publications. In the demonstration, the Graduate Assistants and the rest of TU Second Life showed the student audience one of the art galleries that graduate students showcased in the program. There was also a "sandbox" where users could build different things. Sullivan said that the sandbox application of Second Life is used in hospitals to build molecules. In addition, one of the graduate assistants showed that any special interest to a student could be found on the program's search engine.

But the program is not for everyone. "Not everyone accepts new technologies," Sullivan says. "(Students) may have other important things." She also said that there would be problems for those who have accessibility issues with the latest technology.

The new website also has some downsides. People who wish to use Second Life must be at least eighteen years old to participate, according to Sullivan. Though, the team is currently working on a program for younger users called "Team Grid".


Sullivan adds that Second Life can only be accessed with a "robust" graphics card and good internet access such as DSL. It cannot be accessed on a laptop. Other requirements to download the online program can be found on the website.

Other than that, it could be an open window for students to be more involved with campus without leaving the computer.

More information about Second Life can be found on the website secondlife.com or on the blog at tusecondlife.blogspot.com.

Accuracy: Five MAJOR Problems in Grammar

Sometimes people and writers make little mistakes and errors in their writings. It can just be careless spelling errors or great big sentence structure problems. But with the technologies we have today, those mistakes can be easily fixed with Microsoft Word's spell/grammar check application. Unfortunately, there are some cases where the spell check may miss some careless errors, particularly these five problems listed below.

Note that if you are a writer or you really want to be a journalist, you may want to double check your work before you submit anything. If you make one of these mistakes that's included in this list of problems, you could get yourself into a problem with accuracy, the biggest aspect in journalism. When there's a misprint, readers can easily misinterpret something. Or, readers would be left in confusion because the reading may not make any sense at all. So, take these problems into consideration and steer clear of the following errors that spell check might miss:

1.) Punctuation- The biggest problem of all of them! (which is why it's number one of the top five. Why else?)
In punctuation, you use little symbols like commas, semicolons, and periods to separate clauses and sentences, right? What if you just feel like adding a comma in a sentence because you think there are separate clauses in a tiny sentence? What about a long list that you may think it's all connected together? Made any of those mistakes before?
Just remember that unless you know a punctuation rule, leave the comma out. Think about the sentence before you add extra marks. Think- Does this sentence really need it?

Here's an example of an incorrect sentence from a textbook reading. (This is from the "Grammar Slammer" in Chapter 2: Tools for Writers)
"I like ice cream and cookies, I don't like cakes with icing." The wrong punctuation is used here; there are two distinct independent clauses that can stand alone. Therefore, there should be a semicolon used rather than a comma. Here's the correct sentence:
"I like ice cream and cookies; I don't like cakes with icing."

2.) Subject and verb agreement- Sometimes there are problems with the verb agreeing with the subject or noun. It may sound interesting or funny or cool in a song, such as Timbaland's "The Way I Are", but when writing an actual piece, you want to be careful not to run into that problem because it may confuse the reader. The phrase "Way I are" makes no sense. 'Are' is a word referring to a plural subject- they are, we are, etc. But since 'I' is singular, 'are' isn't used at all because it doesn't agree.

Example:
"Everyone in the Journalism major is required to take a course in Media Law in the third or fourth year of college." Note: When dealing with words such as each, everyone, either, neither, anyone, and anybody are considered singular subjects. So, the correct singular verb must go along with those kinds of words.

3.) Correct pronoun usage- Pronouns take the place of nouns or subjects to avoid unnecessary repetitions in a sentence. Just like in Schoolhouse Rock- "Saying those nouns over and over again really wear you down!" But whenever using a pronoun, make sure that it agrees with the subject that the pronoun is taking place of, known as an antecedant.

Example:
"Not only does the LeaderShape program help students strengthen leadership abilities, it can help them strengthen relationships with other people and have more school pride."

4.) Sentence structure- This is a tough problem that many writers face, myself included. I have made quite a few mistakes with this one before when writing an essay or short story. This is the problem where run on sentences happen and lists aren't agreeing with the rest of a statement. When writing something, sentences must be written in parallel structure- the lists and phrases must be parallel in form.

Example: (From Grammar Slammer, page 28 of Chapter 2)
Wrong: The mayor said the parade would feature the homecoming queen, the marching band will play, and as many floats as possible.
Correct: The mayor said the parade would feature the homecoming queen, the marching band, and as many floats as possible.
Notice the difference between the two italicized phrases?

5.) Word usage- Distinguish between words that may have almost the same spelling or sound, for each word has a different meaning. Some may be confused with words like affect and effect, bore and boar, compliment and complement, and so on.

Example:
Flare means to burn or a flash of something. "There was a flare of bright light in the kitchen and the oven caught fire." But flair refers to style or talent, as in "creative flair".

Summary Leads on the Move!

From Chapter 4 of our Journalism textbook
Disclaimer: Professor Spaulding, this blog may be a little over 50 words this time. I tried to get it as short as I could. Thanks!

Summary lead- the opening one or two sentences that summarize the news story very quickly
Characteristics:

1.) Specifics- Leads contain the most important information and answers the question, "What happened?"
2.) No backing in- No introductory phrase should come before the subject of the story. The subject always comes first.
3.) Concise- How brief is the lead? Should only include the essential information of the news story and leads are written in 30 words or less.
4.) Active voice- This catches a reader's attention by creating movement in the story and explaining how and why the subject takes the action.

Examples of leads from The New York Times:

*"Gunmen kidnapped an American who is a senior United Nations refugee official in Pakistan and killed his driver in the southwestern city of Quetta on Monday morning, United Nations officials said." -Salmon Masood
Why I chose it: It's cutting edge and gets right to the point. There are no introductions before the article, it just tells me what this is going to be about. It really grabbed my attention and interested me in reading the rest of the story to find out more details.

*"The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Monday evening to confirm Eric H. Holder, Jr. as attorney general. The vote was 75 to 21, with only Republicans opposing the nomination." -Neil A. Lewis
Why I chose it: This lead is a lot shorter. I believe the first sentence is the lead itself since it tells me the basics about the turn out of the Senate vote for attorney general. The second sentence showed a little more information that told me how this candidate won by a landslide, but is really not part of the lead. Still, it strikes importance and makes the lead more specific, so it's placed at the beginning. This is a great example of conciseness since it's brief and sums up the whole story.

*"Nearly 14,000 donors- including homemakers, priests, and a former of the Los Angeles Dodgers- poured millions of dollars into the last two weeks of the campaign to pass Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage in California." -Jesse McKinley
Why I chose it: Again, it just states what happened in California a while ago on the subject of passing Proposition 8. Notice how the subject- the sum of 14,000 people- gathered together to do something about a controversial issue of same sex marriage. Like all leads, the subject comes first and is followed by a verb and object or goal.

Chapter 14

Basis for a blog article coming soon. (I'm going to make an article about this to help other students who may want to pursue this writing track.) This is a 200 word entry for my Journalism class:

Objectivity: major journalistic value, stick to the observed facts without putting in opinions
suggestions:

Write what's happening.
Use as little adverbs and adjectives as possible. (Also, try not to use the word I.)
When listening to a politician/official or business person for a story, don't take sides. (See Fairness.)

Thoroughness: heavy, in depth researching for a story
suggestions:

Get as much factual information as possible from various sources.
Get the best sources and understand them.
Understand, explain, and make judgements about what the facts mean.

Accuracy: all information must be accurate and factual
suggestions:

Double check EVERYTHING to see if everything is correct and nothing is misinterpreted.
Don't alter the photos.
If you're unsure something is true, don't use it.

Fairness: all sides to a story are covered
suggestions:

When researching, do a thorough dig on all viewpoints to a story.
Talk to opposing teams on an issue. Listen and understand people who disagree on a matter.
Listen, listen, listen!

Transparency: gain and maintain public trust by being honest
suggestions:

Make links to sources online and refer to them in the story.
Be honest, direct, and truthful.
Ask what kinds of news stories people would like to hear/learn.