There
is a very simple formula to news writing and the secret lies in the 5Ws and 1H.
For readers or listeners to get a full and complete understanding of the news
you have to make sure your news report answers the following 5W and 1H
questions:
Who or Whom is it about or has
happened to
What is happening or happened
Where is it happening or did it happen
When is it happening or did it happen
Why is it happening or did it happen
How is it happening or did it
happen
The
5Ws and 1H questions are the main ingredients for all news reports as they
contain all the facts that you will need for your news article.
Therefore,
these are the key questions you must ask if you are gathering
information for a news article or bulletin.
It's
easy to understand how important these questions are to a news report if you
remove one or more of them.
Think
of a news item you have read, seen or heard recently. It would obviously be
lacking something quite obvious if you didn’t know where the news had
happened or when it happened, for instance.
On
saying that however, it isn't always possible to get all the questions answered
in the first hit, especially if it’s breaking news.
An
initial TV or radio bulletin of news ‘as it happens’ might be missing quite a
few of the main ingredients to give the audience the complete story, but
through on-going updates and subsequent news reports the journalist should
eventually answer all the 5Ws and 1H questions.
So as a journalist it will be your responsibility to get answers to the 5Ws and 1H questions so that your audience gets a complete and full understanding of the news.
You might be able to get all the answers fairly quickly or it might take weeks, months or even longer, but as a good journalist you should never forget to report news updates and the final full story, however long after the initial news report.
I will be
writing lots more about how to write news articles in future posts so
if you want to stay posted do follow my blog. Thank you!
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