Chew the Fat

When writing a news story you must use the inverted triangle. This is the only accepted style. The inverted triangle style states that all the ‘important’ information must be in the first sentence. The what, when, where, why, who and how must all be in the first sentence. Quotes and reported speech should be used to give the story life. Find a ‘newsworthy’ angle that is interesting and different. If it is shocking and now, it is news. Some times you have to do ‘death knocks’. That is going to the family of a dead person to get a good photo or quote. Sometimes you have to chase cars down the road; some times you have to push your way to the front of a media scrum. Sometimes you have to be rude, pushy and obnoxious.

It’s hard I know, sometimes the editor asks you to do something difficult but if you write a headline story then it’s worth it, isn’t it?

Journalists are all pretty left and idealistic. We have to be; the average income is about 33,000 per year. No right thinking capitalist would put up with that kind of froth for the pressure and ugliness of reporting a story.

It seems though, we start with intentions to make a difference, to change the world, but we are worked though a system of house styles, editorial slants, relationship keeping, source greasing and advertorial brown nosing, in order to keep producing money for the media moguls, that we forget why we started in the first place, or worse, resign to the idea that we can do nothing more than be another cog in the wheel.

What I believe is particularly evil about this ‘journalism’, is the mask of objectivity it gloats. It is a McDonaldised form of story telling. If you do not do our course and write our way you will not be accredited and you will not work in our industry. We are the standard and style, all others are wholly subjective and embellishments of our ‘truth’.

Gloria Emerson, an award winning journo who covered the Vietnam War for the New York Times, said that she regrets going to the war everyday. She wondered if she really made any difference at all.

“My stories were just ice cubes,” She said.
“All those hours I spent typing and writing, what has become of those stories? They have melted away with time, they have been forgotten”.

Perhaps there is hope. A new journalism that has not been standardised maybe on the rise. Reporters will be trusted because we see their commitment to get as much of the scene in focus as possible. They have no editorial pressures, they do not have to stay loyal to advertisers and chief reporters, assistant editors and sub editors do not filter their stories.

We are not there yet, but I hope that the rise of bloging and personal Web Pages will usher in a new era of journalism where grass roots freelance reporting paints a picture with a much clearer brush.