UP Radio Circle’s Elevate 10 Part 3: News Writing and Science and Health Writing Discussion

Charles Kirby Manuyag & Thea Alodia Tugade

SATURDAY, November 27, 2021 - The UP Radio Circle commenced their last day of Elevate 10, a student journalism workshop, widening the journalists’ knowledge about News Writing (10 AM to 12 NN) and Science and Health Writing (2 PM to 4 PM), held via Zoom Conference.

The event kicked off as the master of ceremony welcomed the speaker for News Writing, Ms. Ellen Tordesillas, the President and Trustee of VERA Files, and an Opinion Columnist at Malaya Business Insight and ABS-CBN News.

She started her discussion by sharing some of her experiences with News Writing. According to her, the participants might still not have been born when she started writing news. Ms. Ellen then tackled the core values of Journalism. In the core values, there are five (5): Truth-telling, Independence, Fairness, Humanness, and Accountability. Later on, she elaborated those one by one.

As she dove into her main topic, which was all about news, she said that news is an accurate and timely account of an idea, issue, or event. “Dapat bago, you are not writing history… not doing a thesis or historical account,” she embarked. Ms. Ellen also presented the news values — wherein she mentioned 4 news values that every news writer should consider whenever writing a news story. In writing news, they should consider these things: Timeliness, Proximity, Prominence, and Oddity.

Thereafter, she elucidated the inverted pyramid that is commonly used in writing news. As she goes to the inverted pyramid topic, she asked some questions to the participants: “Why do we use inverted pyramids? What are the advantages of using an inverted pyramid?” It is then explained that the inverted pyramid is the structure of a news story compared to the structure of a short story or essay. Ms. Ellen proceeded to explain the parts of an inverted pyramid.

The first part is the Lead, wherein it’s a place where the most important facts are found, and it answers the 5 W's and 1 H. The Lead also starts with the most dramatic and most important facts. This section contains enough information to give the reader a good overview of the entire news story. The second part of the pyramid needs to support the Lead. It’s either a quote or document that could support the Lead of the news story. In writing the support, any of the above is not in the introduction, plus, perhaps, or the significance. It moves the story forward with more details and related information. Furthermore, the last part of the inverted pyramid is just details that are left out.

Ms. Elle showed some examples of her news following the inverted pyramid, and she let the participants criticize the news and share their thoughts about it to make the webinar more engaging and interesting. She, too, shared some of the advantages of using the inverted pyramid in writing a news story. It allows writers for easier editing, it can facilitate headline writing, important frontloading points that make it easy for quick reading, and it helps the writer organize materials gathered for the story. “We should know the basics of writing news,” she highlighted.

According to Ms. Ellen, news writing is truth-telling. In news writing, journalists inform the people of what’s happening. They inform them with facts to guide them with their decisions, especially about what’s happening around society considering the upcoming elections.

In writing news, journalists should consider it as their challenge, thus, make truth-telling interesting. She then shared some tips in writing to which she advised that writers should use active verbs rather than passive verbs, and the core values of journalism could be used as guidelines in writing news stories.

As she ended her discourse, the participants were given a chance to ask questions to the speaker for the Q&A portion of the workshop. The AM session of the webinar concluded as the emcees granted Ms. Ellen Tordesillas the Certificate of Appreciation, and participants were then asked to turn their cameras on for the photo opportunity.

Moving forward on the second topic, the university invited Mr. TJ Dimacali, a Science Writer and Science fictionist and the founding editor of the GMA News Online Science and Technology Section for the topic Science and Health Writing.

Mr. TJ began his lecture by introducing the meanings and fundamentals of Science and Health Writing. Later on, he discussed and advised about the “must-do” of a writer if they don't have access to the paper or information about the research that they’re conducting. He noted that writers should reach out to the authors, dig online, and interview a topic expert. Mr. TJ also highlighted that writers should clarify to their interviewees that they're not directly related to the study.

Moreover, he also presented some practices on the before and during of conducting an interview such as a) Observing the behavior of the interviewee, b) Adjusting their follow-up questions to how their interviewee responds, c) Not inserting themselves into the conversation, and more.

"Always end with the question: ‘Is there anything that I missed?" stated Mr. TJ Dimacali as he advised on the practices of conducting an interview.

Moving forward, upon the knowledge of information and notes, he said that understanding the target audience as if writers are in the same shoe as them is important as he defined scientific analogy along with the examples of Water Pipe Analogy for Electric Circuits and Apartment Building Analogy for Electron Arrangement in relation with Science News Writing. There he discussed what writers should do to write an engaging story as he also gave the similarities and differences between straight news and feature story. "Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon," exclaimed Mr. TJ Dimacali.

Nearing the end of his discussion, he then emphasized the good and bad headlines and the visuals of news with a target audience in mind. Mr. TJ gave his works serving as his examples, in what he thought are appealing to the audience, that makes it a strong headline and visual. “Writers shouldn't write to impress, but to communicate,” said Mr. TJ, as he provided some tips to conclude his lecture.

The emcees then opened the floor for the Q&A portion, to which Mr. TJ answered some questions to the engaging attendees. It was then followed by the closing remarks led by Mr. Albert Lirio, the project head of Elevate 10, together with a photo opportunity.

Moreover, the annual student journalism workshop, Elevate 10, organized by UP Radio Circle, successfully reached its conclusion.

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