Today you’ll put your new news writing skills into practice. You may write as many stories as you like, but at least two must be in inverted pyramid style (refer to last Friday’s News Conference post and the Style and Structure .ppts if you need a reminder).
THE EXERCISE
- Nominate one student to be editor for the day. They will direct what will be your first editorial conference. You should gather around the centre table and discuss what the news of the day is. Keep this BRIEF.
- Each of you should suggest a story you’d like to write – please be disciplined about this meeting and keep your suggestions short and to the point. Your story may be from a recent press release, or it can be from news on the web. Your story must be your own writing – don’t be tempted to borrow sentences or phrases!
- It’s worthwhile considering the “mix” of stories you’re covering – so for example, consider a couple of police or crime stories, a foreign news story, a political story (banning eyeball tattooing anyone?!), an entertainment story, etc. So if each person chooses something different, we’ll have a great variety of news stories to publish.
- File your story (or stories) by the end of class by posting on your WordPress site, and tweet a link to your followers in a tweet that will compel them to read the story
- Remember NOT to simply rip off any image you find on Google Image search to use with your story!
- Have fun 🙂
j-school 