Fresh Tidings

Professor Padwe made my day today. He left me a lovely voice-mail message with some very nice feedback about my news drill. I am absolutely elated.

We had a fairly light day today -- just a lecture on news writing by Professor Bruce Porter. He started off with the most fundamental question: what is news?

Apparently, according to Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2d ed.), it is "fresh tidings." (How quaint is that?) Porter also gave us his own definition: "fresh information that interests or affects us." He then deconstructed it a bit. For example, "information" = facts = things perceived (and therefore able to be validated) by the reporter ≠ opinion, rumor, or assumptions.

After that, he dove into the mechanics of news writing, starting with the inverted-pyramid structure, in which the most critical information is front-loaded at the top of the story, with increasingly less important information following thereafter. This structure makes life easier for the reader -- rather than having to (heaven forfend) read the entire piece, you can get the gist right up front in the first few paragraphs. It also makes life easier for the editor, who can simply trim the story (from the bottom) when space is at a premium.

Porter focused a lot of time on the heart of news writing: the lede. The lede tells the whole story quickly and completely, generally in one sentence of fewer than 35 words. It covers the traditional five Ws and H: who, what, when, where, why, and how. In a straight news story (as opposed to, say, a feature), the lede is typically the very first sentence. Everything else flows directly from it.

To help us get the hang of it, Porter had the class -- as a group -- write the ledes for several well known fairy tales. It was a great pedagogical technique -- since we all knew the facts so well, we could concentrate completely on mastering the form. Here is the lede for "Little Red Riding Hood":

A 10-year-old girl and her granny were saved from being eaten by a wolf in Big Woods today when a passing lumberjack killed the animal with his ax, police said.

After working his way through most of the collected works of Aesop and Grimm, Porter finished up with some tips on writing the body of the news story (organization is key) and general advice. He told us to be on the lookout for original angles, especially on major stories that receive broad coverage. As an example, he cited Jimmy Breslin -- after JFK's death, when all of the other reporters were covering the funeral, Breslin tracked down and interviewed his gravedigger.

So, Week 1 of J-school is officially over. Wow, that was fast.

Quotes of the day:

A good reporter never misses irony. -- Bruce Porter

Always distrust your ears. -- Bruce Porter

Class photo: