The 5Ws and 1H of news writing

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!