What’s News?Short Reports & Summary Leads
This weekend we all read about the tragedy of Hurricane Ike. Whether we read it in the newspaper, internet, or watched the numerous television news stories, we all can agree that it was a story worth being told. Many news medium varied on how they delivered the results on the catastrophe, but their main goal was to attract the reader.
*Short reports were very common in the print news; for example this was the opening for a front page Baltimore Sun article.
“Rescue crews in high-wheel trucks, helicopters and boats ventured out to pluck people from their homes Saturday in an all-out search for thousands of Texans who stubbornly ignored warnings of "certain death" and tried to ride out Hurricane Ike.”
This is a considered a short report because basically the readers gets a brief overview of the most important events of the story. This short report also is used in past tense by using words like ventured and ignored and also by using time elements.
*Summary Leads, basically give you straight news. It answers the 5 Ws and the one 1 H (what, when, why, when, and how). When a summary lead is used, the story is presented using the most important data in the first paragraph.
“Hurricane Ike barreled across a wide swath of Texas on Saturday, deluging the city of Galveston with a wall of water, flooding coastal towns and leaving extensive damage across metropolitan Houston.”
Who-Texas
What- Was left with extensive damage
When- Saturday
Where- metropolitan Houston
How –Hurricane Ike; barreling and deluging the city with flooding waters
What- Was left with extensive damage
When- Saturday
Where- metropolitan Houston
How –Hurricane Ike; barreling and deluging the city with flooding waters
Link to the full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/14ike.html?hp
5 comments:
Good job posting pictures and links to your blog. I like that your entries are short and to the point!
by using pictures and links you broke up your entry and made it easier and more interesting to read.
Your pictures were really good and your blog is well written. Very conversational, which is great for your blog.
I think your blog was very good and creative. You used pictures, gave examples and you used bold and italics.
Hey Sharnay,
I enjoyed your recent blog post on summary leads and short reports. I found that you were conversational, your pictures brought the story to life and you presented the story in a few short words.
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