Newspaper Articles

[MJRevell]

Apologies for a slightly off-topic post, but I'm writing an article on a local sports team for the local paper, and I just want to make sure I go about it in the right way.

Have any of you had experience of this sort of thing?

Is the formatting of it as important as submitting a story or manuscript? Are there a number of conventions I must adhere to?

Many thanks,

Mike

 

[Blackrook]

Yes, there are lots of conventions. If you plan to write articles as a regular thing, I suggest you take a journalism class in college.

The thing to remember is that very few people finish a newspaper article. You lose a certain number of readers after each paragraph.

So you must cram a short version of the entire story in the first paragraph: the who, what, where, when, and how.

Then you give important details, the most important first, and so on. You leave out the less important stuff until the end, and you can expect your editor will chop a lot of it out for space reasons.

It's a much different writing style than writing fiction and you can't just wing it.

 

[The Judge]

As for presentation of content, I think there might be a difference between an article and a news report.

In a report - ie of the latest match - then yes, condense all the important stuff in the first para, then expand on it in succeeding paras, most important/interesting first without too much repetition. But I would have thought an article - say on how well the team has been doing since going on a special diet - would give you a little more freedom to manoeuvre, though you still need to grab people's attention in the first para and let them know what the subject is.

I suggest you get hold of a few copies of the local paper and just read through the type of articles/reports it includes. That will probably give you all the help you need.

As for formatting - I shouldn't imagine it will be too much of a problem if you set things out cleanly and neatly but if you're worried just ring and ask them. It's not quite the same thing, I know, but my partner sends press releases to our local paper a few times a year and the staff are always very helpful.

Hope it goes well for you.

J