One Thing... from Class April 1, 2014

 

 

       Writing a news story is not as easy as it seems. You read the news everyday, you don't really think twice about who wrote it, did they take the time to write an outline and set up the article perfectly, and did they maybe have outside opinions on the content and grammar? If you have to write news stories for breaking news, or over night so it doesn't just become yesterdays news, you are not given much time to write and edit until it is perfect. People who write and edit their stories put a lot of work into their writing to have it published only hours within receiving the topic of their report. Especially if their story is breaking news, they have to get that information published as soon as they possibly can. There is no time for them to make mistakes in the first place, it has to be perfectly written the first time because the audience cannot wait for so long to have information put out there that they may have already read on another news site.

 

        Even though we are given plenty of time to write our own news story on Erie being the snowiest city, there is still a lot of pressure to produce the best news story that sounds like it could be a head lead. With this being the first news story I have ever written, it is hard to understand the main ideas and concepts to include into making it suitable for an audience, and for keeping their attention. Not only does your information have to be correct, and you have to have guests to interview to get their own take on things, but you also have to know the right words and grammar and information that is needed and not just pointless information used as fillers. News writing is tough, and the audience that critiques your writing is even tougher. Who wants to write every day news stories that no one will find interesting and read? The whole purpose is to capture attention and provide correct and accurate data, and it isn't always a piece of cake to do, figuring that all of your audience may be different.

 

        Writing about something is easy, almost anyone can do it. But writing the best news story coverage, that's the real challenge, and it just takes one step at a time, learning through it all to be a top notch writer.