No single day will miss breaking news. Statistics conducted by Forbes reveal 60% of daily news are breaking news.
How to write breaking news is a skill any news reporter should master in order to advance in his or her career. Missing too many breaking news will only lead you to writing a resume that will lead you to unemployment line. Here are six awesome ways that will help you write breaking news faster.
1. Ensure you Plan for the Story
Whenever you are leaving a newsroom to cover any Nigeria breaking news today now, ensure you use the time in the car to correctly plan what you will be saying. You are not yet on the scene of fire, ribbon cutting or news conference and you already have an idea about the story you are going to report on. Ensure you try to get focus on the story down to one sentence. This will be the basis for writing the breaking news lead whether you will be coming up with something for a TV news reporter to say or you will be writing web headlines.
2. Think About Visuals
Previously, shooting great videos used to only apply on TV news. Today, web journalists, newspaper reporters are required to have videos that will go together with their stories. This explains why it is important to think about what the readers and viewers will see along with the words you write. Getting the most compelling video images will help you get started with your writing. One great tip you should consider whenever you are writing TV news is to ensure you write to your video. This means saying something the viewers are able to see rather than going off topic.
3. Conduct Focussed Interviews
In case you are in a rush while on the scene of the news story, it is possible to save time while conducting interviews if you are aware of what you want to ask. Otherwise, you will most probably fall a victim of rambling interview which you will never have time to review or use in your breaking news story. However, conducting an interview in a combative situation comes with its own challenges which can easily eat into your time.
4. Ensure You Produce Focussed Stories
By now you are probably aware of your lead sentence. Now you need to write the rest of your story. There are certain basic writing tips which will help you write faster. First, you need to think in three- three main points your interview made, three main parts of the issue you are covering, three reasons your news story matters to people. These will be the backbone of your story. You need to avoid making critical errors no matter the type of deadline you are facing.
5. Avoid Obstacles that Will Slow You Down
There are certain aspects of collecting and writing news which can put you on standstill. Ensure you adequately plan for the issues to avoid them. For example, there are times when you might forget all the information you require on the interview, scene or meeting location. You only remember the key question after you have returned back to your office desk. In most cases, this will begin when you start writing your first sentence.
It is important that you always take a few minutes before you leave the location of your story and ask yourself if you have everything you needed. You can come up with a mental checklist or a written one where you will mark off the essential things you need.
6. Prepare for Follow Ups
No comments:
Post a Comment