The Inverted Pyramid
The basic newswriting style we will be studying this semester is something
called the inverted pyramid style of writing. It is not quite as old
as the dinosaurs, but sometimes it feels like it.
It has endured since the Civil War days for a number of reasons. There
ARE other emerging writing styles for newspapers, but the inverted
pyramid is such a stable and reliable form, it is the first you should
learn.
To understand the inverted pyramid style of writing picture an upside
down triangle. The base of the pyramid is now on top (or at the beginning
of a story) instead of at the bottom.
An example of regular pyramid story might be an old-fashioned mystery
story where the reader is introduced to more and more important clues
as he/she reads on. It is only after collecting all those clues that
the reader can finally start to solve the mystery. With an inverted
pyramid story we give away the solution (or in our case a summary)
at the very beginning. The rest of the story contains lesser and lesser
important information until we just stop.
The inverted pyramid story contains just two parts: a lead (pronounced
leed and sometime spelled lede) and a body. There is
no fixed ending or conclusion to the story. When you run out of story
to tell you just stop.
There is a good reason that there is no ending, which I'll discuss
lower.
But first, a few other key points deserve mention:
- Your job as reporter is
to report the opinions of others. Leave your opinion out of the
story. The term for introducing your own opinion into a story
is called editorializing. Leave all mention of yourself
out of the story. Avoid such phrases as, "when asked about
the (something) so-and-so said . . .". Who did the asking?
You did. You just introduced yourself into the story. If someone
else did the asking and you want to use that wording, then say
who did the asking. "When asked by his coach, so-and-so said
. . .".
- Chronological presentation of information may have a place in
your story, but your lead should shun chronology and go for the
overall summary.
- Rare is the story that cannot be improved with multiple sources.
While you won't have much control of that with the workbook assignments
we'll be using, in your realworld writing, look for multiple sources
who have multiple points of view.
- In all of newswriting, it is best to keep your paragraphs short.
As a general rule of thumb, we keep our paragraphs confined to
just one sentence. This is vastly different than you've been taught
in your composition classes where you write a theme sentence and
build on it.
- Another general guideline is that your sentences should have
an average of 20-28 words. The number varies based on who you
talk to, but you get the idea. Don't spend forever counting words,
though. That is an average. You should have shorter sentences/paragraphs
and every once in a while you are going to have longer ones. Back
when we used typewriters, I was taught that anything more than
four lines of typewritten copy was too long for a sentence/paragraph.
It was just another way of saying the same thing.
History
There are several stories about how the inverted pyramid format
began in American journalism. Perhaps the most likely is that during
the Civil War northern (and sometimes southern) news correspondents
all wanted to make use of the military telegraph to wire back their
stories of the day's battles. But there were so many correspondents
who wanted to use the one telegraph line that the military could
decide arbitrarily who got to use it . . . . and for how long. Add
to that the fact that the losing side had a shred of ego left if
it could prevent the papers from reporting that it had lost the
battle. It took just one surviving soldier to sever a telegraph
wire and put reporters out of business for a while.
Quite simply, you never know how much time you had to send your
story. It was to your benefit to send the most important stuff first
just in case your whole message did not make it for some reason.
Later the format survived because editors found the space available
for actual news in their newspapers shrink (curse all those ads
and photographs that take up so much space!). If a writer writes
a story that is 20 inches long once it is set in those narrow column
widths newspapers use, but there is only 15 inches of space, something
has to be cut.
Now, an editor could meticulously sift through the story,
striking a word here, dashing a phrase there, and come up with tighter
story that fits. But that would take longer than most editors have.
If the story is written with the most important stuff at the top
and the least important stuff at the bottom, trimming it becomes
a much easier job. The editor can just cut from the bottom and be
assured that nothing vital has been left out.
Today, there is an even stronger motive for the survival of the
inverted pyramid: Today's readers are bombarded with all kinds of
media messages. They must ration their time spent with the media
and must decide quickly which stories to read.
Studies show that the average readers today scan the newspaper's
headlines and photos and from them decides to stop at only a few
stories. Once stopped, they may read only the first couple of paragraphs
of story and then move on. (The challenge, of course, is to write
such a doggone interesting story that readers read the story from
start to finish, but that rarely happens).
If readers only read the first few paragraphs and move on, we certainly
want to give them the most important information. If readers stop
after just one paragraph, they should walk away with a general understanding
of the story. If they read two paragraphs, they have the general
understanding and the next most important or interesting information.
And so on, throughout the story. The weak writer is the one who
buries an important detail deep in the story.
- An example of burying the lead
In my newspaper days many years ago I worked with a lot of untrained
writers who gave us news releases of club happenings. I remember
one day receiving a news release from the local garden club. The
story, written by a really nice little old lady, was written in
a chronological format.
According to the story, first the club reviewed the minutes of
last months meetings, and then went over some old business. After
that they tackled new business.
Three pages into the story she got to the last item of the meeting,
the guest speaker, who was some big muckety-muck from the Department
of Agriculture, who told them how to avoid an infestation of a
new plant parasite cropping up around the state.
Shoot, the words of the guest speaker were, by far, the most important
and interesting part of the meeting. So important and interesting,
in fact, that they should have been on page one of the small town
paper. Even those not affiliated with the garden club could benefit
from the speaker's words. But they were buried so deep into a
story that was destined to be buried itself somewhere deep inside
the paper.
We rewrote the story and gave it the play it deserved.
Another reason to make sure you start the story with a summary is
because today's readers are so used to radio and television news,
which rarely go beyond the summary lead. If newspapers want to compete,
they've got to provide the readers with something somewhat familiar.
The folks at Gannett Newspapers realized this when they introduced
USA Today newspaper. They consciously have reduced the size
of stories to no more than nine inches deep for most stories. They've
found a large audience who simply wants a nugget of news.
Ending your story
When I took journalism in high school a common question we asked
our instructor when we were given assignments was, "How long
should this story be?" As adviser to student publications for
more than 20 years I've lost count how many times new reporters
have asked that question.
My high school journalism teacher's answer to the question was cryptic:
She'd simply answer, "As long as a piece of string." Of
course, we didn't understand that answer, so she would explain:
"A piece of string is as long as it is, no longer. And if it
needs to be shorter you can cut it." Oh, right, that made sense!
What she was trying to tell us was to let the story determine how
long it needs to be. Do your research. Sort your thoughts. And write
the story. When you are done telling the story, simply stop. Don't
try to make it longer than it is by adding superfluous words. Don't
try to put a conclusion on it. Simply stop.
You'll be surprised. The more you research your story, the less
you'll worry about how long you have to make it. Instead,
you'll worry about how short to make it. You'll have to decide
what to leave out. And then some fool editor will come along and
cut your piece of string and make it shorter. Just be sure you've
put the most important stuff at the top.
Answer and e-mail the following questions to me.
- What are some reasons for the inverted pyramid form of writing?
- What are the parts of an inverted pyramid story?
- How long should paragraphs be in newswriting?
- How do you end a story written in the inverted pyramid format?
rCameron@cerritos.edu
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