News stories are structured differently from essays, poems or short stories. It’s useful to understand the pieces that make up a news story, and learn the terms we use to describe these elements. HEADLINE: The headline is like an advertisement for the story. It attracts readers while telling them briefly what the story is about. LEDE: All journalistic stories start with a lede (pronounced like “lead”). The lede is the first sentence or two of the story, and it leads the reader into the story, hooking his or her interest. If you don’t get your reader interested, they’ll skip right over your story and read another instead. There are many different types of ledes – straight, anecdotal, historical, and the list goes on. Usually, the lede is the fact, moment or tidbit that you find most interesting about your story. We say “Don’t bury the lede,” meaning, don’t hold out on your reader by saving your most interesting information until halfway into the story – hit us with your best shot up front. Think about what facts have the most “news value.” Journalists use the image of an “inverted,” or upside-down, pyramid to remind themselves that the most important and newsworthy information should always be at the top of a story, and the rest of the information goes in order of most important to least important. NUT GRAF: The nut graf is the main point or the “nut” of the story. “Graf” is short for “paragraph.” It should tell you all the basic information about your story. The Five W’s and H – Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? WHO? Who are the main characters of the story? Who is the story about? WHAT? What happened? What is the story about? WHERE? Where does...

Here are a couple of stories from The Local that use quotes particularly effectively: “Victim of Ingersoll Shooting Was a Young Father,” by Kerri Macdonald, 3/17/2011 “Mixed Reactions to New Sports Bar Near Planned Arena” by Kyle Thomas McGovern, 8/18/2011 Here are some basic guidelines on quoting: Quotes should go up high – Voices bring a story to life. Don’t lead with a quote unless that quote is the best quote ever and completely self-explanatory. (Most reporters find the elusive quote that is strong enough to lead a story only once or twice in an entire career!) What to quote: strong language, utterances that convey emotion, quotes that deepen the reader’s understanding of the facts What not to quote: basic dull information, quotes that have lies or wrong information in them (unless you’re pointing out that the info is wrong or a lie), quotes that are confusing or hard to follow For the most part, if you mention someone you spoke to in your story, they need to be quoted, not just paraphrased or partially quoted. Don’t “clean up” people’s quotes by fixing their grammar or erasing traces of their dialect. At the same time, AP style is to only very sparingly use words like “wanna” or “gonna,” and only really in features when you’re trying to convey something about the person. Otherwise, take these contractions as a pronunciation of “want to” or “going to.” Set up your quotes by explaining any context or mentioning anything referenced in the quote. For example, from Kerri MacDonald’s story above: Ms. Rivera Vasquez, 21, was home when she got a call with the news that Mr. Vasquez had been shot. “From right there, I knew it,” she said. “He was dead.” Start a new paragraph most of the time...