17.2.2020

News. What are they?

Cristina Tavares Correia

They are on the Internet and on television, they can be heard on the radio and read it in a newspaper or magazine. News is everywhere, thousands every day arriving from all over the world in seconds or minutes!

Journalistic styles vary. You find several ways to tell the same story, but a news story is the type of story that you can find the most.
But after all, what is it, and how can we distinguish it?

  • News reports the facts that actually happened.

The writer will not give his opinion on what happened - this is called objectivity. So you usually find more verbs (which offer action) and nouns, and fewer adjectives - just those that are needed to describe people or situations.

News is always about something that has just happened or is being discovered. It is current. In most stories, you will soon find out the most essential thing in the first lines: Who? What? Where? When? Why or How?. The five Ws.
The five W - journalist writing style.

For example: “Our school (who?) won the Inter-School Football Tournament (What?), by winning for 3 to 1 Mata School (How?) in the final that took place at the city’s Sports Pavilion (Where? ), yesterday (when?).”

This is called the “inverted pyramid” scheme. On the base, you have the more important, at the top, at the beginning. The details that are not so important are saved for last.

The five W - journalist writing style. Inverted pyramid
The story should be told simply and clearly, so everyone can understand. Tell the story with short phrases, direct.

The way of reporting a piece of news is different depending on the media. In the press (newspapers, magazines), on the Internet, on television or on the radio you can find various styles. Journalists do not like to repeat words and ideas when they write on paper. On TV and radio sometimes, it is necessary to reiterate so people can understand what the most essential message is. On the Internet, there may be hyperlinks or links in the text that lead to other news related to it, to learn more about this subject.

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