Definition of News Reporting

News reporting involves discovering all relevant facts, selecting and presenting the important facts and
weaving a comprehensive story. Reporting involves hard work, which in turn involves stamina and
patience. The main function of journalistic profession is news reporting.

A reporter needs not only energy to spend long hours chasing a story, collecting facts from various
sources in an effort to dig up the truth, he needs must have the will to pursue the course of his
investigation to the very end in order to produce a really comprehensive story without any missing links or
unanswered questions.

In the modern age news journalism the responsibilities of the press have grown manifold. These days, the
people are governed by multiplicity of authorities, viz. Municipality, District Administration, State
Government and the Central Government. Even non-governmental authorities are involved in the lives of
the people in one-way or the other. Man cannot live alone. He is a social animal. The way his neighbours
behave or act affects him. Man is thus anxious to know more about the world he lives in. Satisfaction of
this curiosity is the major task of a good journalist.

The variety and the depth of news has, of late, increased manifold. In fact, newspapers, magazines and
periodicals have become the main source of information for the people. This fact underscores the need
for accuracy in news reporting. Giving inaccurate news or putting out news in a casual manner is fraught
with grave dangers. A journalist, who is careless in news reporting or indulges in lies, is a disgrace to the
profession. It is better to ease him out from this profession. If a journalist reports that 50 persons
belonging to a particular community ,died as a result of communal riot when in fact only 5 persons had
lost their lives, his misreporting can trigger off a major communal flare up and pose grave threat to law
and order.

Intro in News reporting

The intro is the most important part of any news story. It should be direct, simple and attention-grabbing. It
should contain the most important elements of the story - but not the whole story. The details can be told
later.

It should arouse the interest of the reader or listener, and be short. Normally it should be one sentence of
not more than 20 words for print media, and fewer for radio and television.

The perfect intro

 The intro should be based on the most newsworthy aspect of the story.

 The intro should be kept short, uncluttered and relevant to the main story. It should be simple
grammatically.

 The intro should make the reader want to read the rest of the story.

 The intro should be appropriate in style to the story.

Newsworthy

To write an intro, you must first decide what makes the story news. There may be several things which are
newsworthy in the story. If so, you have to decide which is the most newsworthy. This will be in the intro.

In this way, your readers or listeners will be provided with the most important information straight away.
Even if they stop reading or listening after the first one or two sentences, they will still have an accurate
idea of what the story is about.
One simple way to do this is to imagine yourself arriving back at your office and being asked by the chief of
staff: "What happened?" Your quick answer to that question, in very few words, should be the basis of your
intro.

With some years of experience, you will find that you can recognise the most newsworthy aspect of a story
almost without thinking. While you are still learning, though, it is useful to have a step-by-step technique to
use. We shall explain this technique in detail later in this chapter.

Short and simple

Your intro should normally be no longer than 20 words. There is no minimum length. An intro of 10 or 12
words can be very effective.

Usually, an intro will be one sentence. However, two short sentences are better than one long, crowded and
confused sentence.

The words you use should be short and simple, and the grammar should be clear and simple.

You should not try to give too much detail in the intro. The six main questions which journalists try to
answer - Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How? - will all need to be answered in your news story,
but they should not all be answered in your intro. Try to remember these questions as The Five Ws and H
- WWWWWH.

For each of those six key questions, you will need to ask whether this detail makes the story news. For
example, who was drowned? A woman called Mary. Suppose it had been somebody else - would the story
have been stronger, weaker or the same? Only if this detail makes the story stronger should it be in the
intro.

The golden rule for intro-writing is KISS - Keep It Short and Simple.

Attract the reader

The intro is the most important part of the news story, because it determines whether the rest of the story
will be read.

If the intro is dull the reader will not want to read on. If it is too complicated the reader will give up.

Your time and effort in gathering information and writing the story will all be wasted unless you write a good
intro.

Appropriate style

Not all possible intros are appropriate. It would be wrong to write a humorous intro for a story about a
tragedy. Serious news stories call for serious intros.

For example, if a man was eaten by the pet crocodile he had reared from an egg, it might seem amusing to
use the saying about "biting the hand that feeds you", but it would cause great hurt to the man's family and
friends for no good reason (apart from trying to show how clever you are).