Reporting and writing the news is a means of telling members of the public what happened when they were not around to witness it. Everyone sees just a small slice of life in a given place each day, and the journalist’s job is to summarize the rest of the news that takes place in communities all around the world. A journalist will first collect the information carefully, accurately and fairly, then use this information to write stories that are easily understood by the audience. To do this, a journalist will often rely on a format called the inverted pyramid, which has proved to be a successful way to communicate news. The inverted pyramid puts the most newsworthy information first, starting with a “lede.” The rest is then arranged in descending order of importance. Learning this method allows journalists to work quickly and efficiently.

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• Identify the characteristics of the inverted pyramid for presenting news

• Identify the key facts of a news story — who, what, where, when, why and how — for a lede

• Apply inverted pyramid method to write a news story

• Learn the purpose of quotes and source attribution

• Identify alternative ledes and when they are best used