REPORTING 101 QUICK OVERVIEW Ensure all sides of the story are covered or if it is just a one side story

ry at least have multiple sources Stay away from yes or no questions in interviews go for the heart peoples thoughts and feelings as well as facts in order to get good quotes Decide on angle get your lead from this DO NOT BURY YOUR LEAD!!!! this includes columns and opinion pieces people do not read newspapers the same way they do textbooks Keep to the who, what, when, where, why and how support lead with key points and then best to add a quote to support this continue with interesting information and quotes and end with least important facts dont stretch the story unnecessarily you dont need to use all the info and quotes you gathered, only those to answer the key questions a reader might have Features use softer leads feel free to approach the key point/angle at the end of first paragraph or into second instead of first sentence, sometimes second paragraph Keep paragraphs to one or two sentences in news stories make it visually easy to read Try to find another editor to read through before it goes to the copyeditor sometimes we get too close to what weve written Re: features students want to be entertained, dont write for a grade a grade Re: news readers want to fire through the story and get the key info not think too deeply about it - save that for the opinion pieces