Writing for News Media

Book excerpt: Writing for News Media is a down-to-earth guide on how to write news stories for online, print and broadcast audiences. It celebrates the craft of storytelling, arguing for its continued importance in a modern newsroom. With dynamism and humour, Ian Pickering, a journalist with 30 years’ experience, offers readers practical advice on being a news journalist, with step-by-step guidance on creating a great story and writing the perfect news copy. Chapters include: extracts from published news articles to help illustrate the dos and don’ts of storytelling; the ten golden rules for structuring and putting together a successful news article, including ‘Nail the intro’, ‘Let it flow’ and ‘Keep it simple’; instruction on writing stories for different specialist subjects, including politics, court cases, economics, funnies and celebrity; help for readers on how to write for broadcast news; tips on how to write headlines, how to use pictures, how to make the most of quotations and how to avoid common style and grammar mistakes; glossaries covering a range of different aspects of news journalism, including types of news story, online and data journalism, typesetting and broadcasting. This is an instructive and insightful manual which champions brilliant storytelling and writing with flair. It introduces a set of key creative and analytical techniques that will help students of journalism and young professionals hone and refi ne their story-writing skills.