Writing Guidelines
As a student of journalism, I'll do my best to provide you with a few useful tips for writing news; a few guidelines that my professors drilled me with.
First off, let's start with technical guidelines.
Titles
Titles should attract readers, draw them in, and make them read your news. The more creative and appealing a title is, the more readers you might have. Sometimes those creative journalists' souls write a meter long title; don't let it happen to you; don't let your title be twice as size as your lead. Titles should be simple yet creative; they should match the news itself.
Serious, so called hard or breaking news usually have simple yet effective titles, lacking in creativity. The importance of a tragic event (tsunami, plane crash, earthquake...) doesn't require some special title.
"A plane crash in Istanbul took 15 lives"
"14 dead in a plane crash in Istanbul"
These two examples show how simple titles can be very effective.
"Gone with the smoke" wouldn't be appropriate. It'd certainly attract readers but probably due to some other reason.
Images
A minimum size of an image is 70x90px. Recommended width ranges between 150 and 250px. That is not a strict size; it can be larger if it fits news better. That's why we have the Preview button. Make sure you use it to check how your image fits with the rest of your news. If you have a long image description; if your news is messed up after pressing Preview, enter the width of your desired image in a proper field. It should make the description fit the image. Descriptions shouldn't be complicated – they should simply, in a few words describe what your image shows.
Paragraphs
Please, don't let your news look like a big, chubby piece of a plaintive text; give it a shed of gloss, make it look better by forming your news into paragraphs. Pressing the Enter button twice is worth it.
Quotes
If you're using quotes, which is highly recommended to argument your statements, please make them italic. News looks way better and easier to read.
Search tags
Search tags are supposed to be the most relevant words that describe your news and could relate to it. Please, avoid categories as search tags. Tags don't have to be capitalized.
The technical procedure is done.
Now I'll try to share with you what I find the basics of journalism.
Lead and body
Every news published in any sort of media, should contain those magical 5W's + 1H - WHO? WHAT? WHEN? WHERE? WHY? (and one magical H which stands for HOW?). Each of the W's is properly wrapped up in lead (intro) – the main part of any news; part that must inform a reader about the most relevant facts. It speaks to readers, telling them what they might expect.
"14 people died in a plane crash in Istanbul at 4:00 AM EST due to severe engine problems. 32 passengers were severely injured."
This lead example contains everything it should contain. Later on, while writing the body of news, you explain how the things happen. You practically elaborate the lead, providing us with secondary and background information. The end sums it all up and gives us a closure.
"The plane 320 that was flying from Ankara to Istanbul..."
Your news should contain:
LEAD
EXPLANATION
SECONDARY INFORMATION (if there are any)
BACKGROUND INFORMATION (if necessary)
Selection
The selection is very important; sometimes, pressurized by deadlines, your agencies will demand short yet demanding news written within a minute. Then you have to decide what is important and what is not, what an audience will be interested in.
A few tips
- You're not writing a scientific report, you're telling a story that everybody understands
- Every journalist has its own point of view, something to attract the readers with but you should keep in mind to question your journalism ethics. Nobody is untouchable
- Present the events the way they actually happened
- Don't ask questions that you cannot answer
- Write simple
- Avoid your own judgment, your own comments and opinion
- Stay objective, that's what journalism aims for
- Journalists are the most powerful people in the world - they should use their power for common good