JN 311 1nd Edition Lecture 3 Outline of Last Lecture I Chapter 7 Outline of Current Lecture II Soft News III What is Soft news IV It Entertains and informs V Features focus on people places or issues that affect people s lives VI Always need a nut graph VII General Characteristic VIII Clever Lead IX Hard News Leads X What did we learn about leads XI Hard News Leads XII Attribution of Ledes Current Lecture Soft News Anecdotal Tells a story Helps us relate to the person and the issue Descriptive Sets a scene Describes a person or place Narrative Events Recounts the event in a dramatic way Feel like you are witnessing the event Clever or catchy Something unusual that draws us in These are hard to write What s soft news These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute Profiles for one Not always features however Can have a newsy profile It Entertains or informs Emphasis on human interest novelty Less immediacy than hard news Features focus on people places or issues that affect people s lives Can be based on news events Always need a nut graph Provides the focus of the story Try to include before paragraph 4 General Characteristics Tend to go specific to general Transitions into the nut graph which shows how that case illustrates the large issue Clever Lead Word Play Hard News Leads Convey breaking information and straight news Used in inverted pyramid stories and basic press releases Active voice active verbs What did we learn about leads Leads are in past tense typically Headlines are in present tense Leads are in complete sentence form Headlines are where articles are dropped and abbreviations used Don t exaggerate stick to what you know Weed out unnecessary descriptors Remember your audience What do readers what to know Where s the impact Hard New Leads Summary Leads the basic news lead subject verb object order Think of the order of who what where when and why Watch time element placement Delayed identification for most people Updated lead Moves beyond the first day lead assumes readers know basics Impact lead How the audience will be affected Attribution in Ledes Usually needed in some form for credibility Can wait for the second paragraph or stated as briefly as possible except When lead highlights opinion When accusations are made If someone important is saying something important Typically put in at the end of the lead except when the source is most important
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