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6th Semester GENERIC ELECTIVE (ENGLISH)
Media and Communication Skills
Unit 4 Writing for the media
5 W and 1 H Questions
People read the newspaper to figure out the happening around the world. As a news story is introduced to the reader or viewers, he or she has a few questions in mind. 5 W and 1 H questions are the questions that the reader review is looking forward to whenever they have any interest in any news items.
5 W and 1 H Questions:
questions are – Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.
- Who – denotes the people who are related to the concerned news story
- What – refers to the major action or event of the news story
- When – refers to the time that the event or the action has happened that the news story is concerned with
- Where – refers to the place of the action or the event Why – refers to the explanation
- why it happened How – the way things have progressed during the incident or event.
News writing style: Inverted pyramid, hourglass, etc.
Inverted Pyramid
An inverted pyramid is a top-heavy thing where the most significant information is given at the beginning of the story. A reader of a news story wants to know six things – answers to WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY, and HOW (the 5 W and 1 H questions), and the moment these six queries are answered it makes the readers a bit satisfied. Therefore, in the Inverted Pyramid style of news writing these questions are dealt with in the very beginning, that is, the lead. After these queries are answered, the news writer provides more information in the next few paragraphs where he or she expands on the lead and adds more information that supports or upholds the lead.
The Narrative Style:
The most significant thing about a narrative style of writing is that the story is told from a definite point of view. It is not merely a description of things or events (which is descriptive Writing) but a style of writing which focuses on telling things from a particular perspective. 40 Moreover, in such a kind of writing the climax is often postponed so as to keep the readers engaged with the write-up. (लेखन की कथा शैली की सबसे महत्वपूर्ण बात यह है कि कहानी को एक निश्चित दृष्टिकोण से बताया जाता है। यह केवल चीजों या घटनाओं का विवरण नहीं है (जो वर्णनात्मक लेखन है) बल्कि लेखन की एक शैली है जो एक विशेष दृष्टिकोण से चीजों को बताने पर केंद्रित है। इसके अलावा, इस तरह के लेखन में, पाठकों को लेखन से जोड़े रखने के लिए climax को अक्सर स्थगित कर दिया जाता है।)
The Chronological(कालक्रमबद्ध) Style
In some cases, some journalists or reporters also prefer to write news stories in a chronological fashion providing the news story to the readers in the same sequence of time as it has happened. Chronological Stories are often good as backgrounders where the readers are made to get things/information/ facts in a sequential order to have a historical perspective of something, but most people will not like the chronological details as it is time-consuming and often works only for certain sections of people.(जो भी रिपोर्टर खबरों को काल और तिथि के हिसाब से एक के बाद एक प्रदर्शित करता है वह इस प्रकार के लेखन शैली में आता है)
The Hourglass Style
The Hourglass is a style of writing which evolved out of combining elements both of the Inverted Pyramid Style and Narrative Style. In the Hourglass Style of News Story Writing, there is a lead that quickly tells the highlights of the news story shortly followed by a transition from where the reporters go into a chronological narration of events so as to provide the readers with the details of the event as it had happened. Mostly the issues and events which need a chronological retelling are written in the Hourglass style.
Leads
A news story has two main elements – the lead and the body. The lead or the introduction is usually the initial paragraph(s) of the news story which contains the main information or facts. In other words, the highlights of the story are presented in the lead, whereas the additional information is provided in the body of the news story.
while writing the lead, the reporter should keep the following things in mind –
a. Lead should be concise, sharp, and interesting
b. Should be direct, unambiguous, and uncluttered.
c. Lead should be self-contained in the sense that the details in the lead should be self-explanatory(capable of being understood without explanation) and the readers do not necessarily need to read the following paragraphs to understand the lead.
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