Writing Clearly on Deadline Many journalists boast of thriving on deadlines, except when they’re using deadlines as excuses. We used to lament that our medium lacked the immediacy of broadcasting, but that we provided depth. Now we’re always on deadline. Our online presence gives us the opportunity and responsibility to provide immediacy and depth. When you cover breaking news, your deadline is as soon as you can verify the information and file a bulletin. Even veteran journalists need to update their deadline writing skills. Know your dual role. Most reporters covering breaking news today serve two masters and two sets of deadlines: online and print editions and deadlines. Know when you need to file for each edition. Know the best way to file for each edition. Know who the editors on duty are and their phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Get it right. Immediacy and deadlines do not override standards of verification. If you saw something yourself and know it as a fact, of course you report it. If someone tells you, ask how they know. Ask how else they know. Seek verification. Remember the “miracle rescue” stories of the Sago mine disaster and try one more source, make one more call. Get it first. When news breaks, your first deadline is to be first with the story online. Call or e-mail your web editors right away with a bulletin. This is just a simple sentence that may cover just the first four W’s, if that:
The bulletin should tell what you know right away, but nothing you don’t know for sure. If you’re dictating, ask the editor to read it back to you, so you can verify what the editor took down. Update frequently. As you get a bit more information, call or e-mail a brief of three or four paragraphs with basic facts for the web. This may be the minimum story we will discuss below or it may not answer some basic questions you will get for the minimum story. Anticipate deadlines. The most routine deadline writing for many reporters is covering evening meetings (or evening sports events or evening entertainment events), then cranking out a quick story for the morning paper. See how much reporting and writing you can do before the meeting, during the event or during breaks. Meetings in themselves are not interesting. That’s why you won’t find many people at most of them. But many meetings deal with important and interesting issues. Take some time before the meeting to examine the agenda and report on issues to be covered. Let’s say the meeting is about possible cutbacks in the school district’s program to teach English as a second language. You talk to ESL teachers, students and parents beforehand and to advocates of mainstreaming students who don’t speak English. You do most of the reporting and writing before the meeting on a story about changes in the ESL program. And your writing after the meeting is simply a few paragraphs adding the outcome of the vote and a couple quotes from the meeting. You get a better story and you minimize the deadline crunch. Write in advance. Some stories such as elections, executions or final passage of important legislation happen on deadline, but you know they are going to happen. You can write lots of the background that you know will go in the story well in advance. You can write the general outline of the bill and the controversy that spawned it. You can summarize the issues of the campaign. You can write an Osborne-wins version and a Heineman-wins version, then just plug in numbers along with election-night quotes and developments. On an election night or the final night of the Legislature, you have to prepare for the possibility that a bill will pass right on deadline or you will call a race with just minutes to update your story. Write, don’t ponder. One of the biggest time-wasters on deadline is the lead. Don’t ponder the lead while you look at a blank screen. Write a simple declarative sentence: “The school board voted Tuesday to cut funds for its program to teach English as a second language.” That will get you launched. Keep writing. Maybe halfway through the story, you will think of a better lead. Then you can go back and fix the lead, and maybe that will require fixing a few other grafs. You will have more of the story written than if you had tried two or three leads and stared at the blank screen for a while. You don’t have time for that on deadline. Write the story, and hopefully the writing will bring out the best lead. Even if it doesn’t, you probably will have a better story with a simple declarative lead followed by a full, well-written story than with a polished lead reflecting heavy labor, followed by a story that was rushed and incomplete. Write as you report. If you’re working a story by phone, you’re going to have some dead time, maybe a few seconds at a time when you’re on hold or waiting for someone to answer, maybe a few minutes while you’re waiting for people to return calls. Start putting the information from your last interview into story form. Even if you don’t know where it will go in the story yet, start writing paragraphs that will fit somewhere. Write a lead based on what you know so far. In addition to starting your writing, this helps sharpen the focus of the reporting that remains. Writing as you report allows you to continue your reporting closer to deadline. Writing in chunks, with frequent interruptions as you return to reporting, can lead to choppy writing. You need to fix this by using some of the time you save to read back through the story to polish and make it flow smoothly. If you are at the scene and need to run back to the newsroom or hotel to write, you can’t physically write as you report (though wireless communication is making that less of a problem). Start writing or outlining the story in your head or in your notebook or on your laptop or Blackberry during moments when you find yourself waiting. The story will come faster when you sit down to a keyboard. Writing the web forces you to write as you report. Use this writing to help you advance and focus the final story. Identify the minimum story. Decide early what your minimum story is, the story that answers the basic who, what, when, where questions. This is the story that meets basic levels of journalistic competence and allows you to keep drawing a paycheck next week. This is your first goal. You can often get the minimum story from an official source or a few official sources. Often you can get the minimum story by telephone. When you have the minimum story, be sure to file it for the web (though you may file a few grafs earlier as the story is unfolding). Identify the maximum story. Decide early what your maximum story might be, the story that readers will be talking about at work and in coffee shops the next day. This is the story that your editors and readers will remember, that marks you as a star performer. This is the story that will drive heavy traffic to your web site, because no one else has it. This story may answer difficult how, why, so-what or how-much questions or it may address the who-what-when-where questions in greater depth. The maximum story may have such enticing story elements as setting, plot, characters and dialogue. The maximum story may be a narrative, unfolding the drama rather than summarizing. You are looking for elements that might make this story especially memorable. This is your ultimate goal. Maximum stories often require unofficial sources: witnesses, victims, neighbors. The maximum story almost always requires being at the scene. Secure the minimum, then pursue the maximum. If you’re not on deadline and not writing for the web, you might gather the information for the minimal story fairly early, then build incrementally to the maximum story. Or you might start with some of the information for the maximum story and spend a lot of time developing that, knowing you’ll be able to fill in the basics later. On deadline, you want to identify immediately the potential sources who could provide the information for the minimum story and get the information from them as quickly as possible. After filing for the web, you zero right in on the sources who might provide the maximum story. Maybe you can’t get the maximum story on deadline. It might be a second-day story or a Sunday follow-up. But go for it. If you don’t land the maximum story, you’re likely to gather material that will improve on the minimum story. Reassess frequently. Before and after each interview or each development, reassess quickly what you still need to nail down the minimum or maximum story. Go quickly to those elements in your questioning. Go to the sources who are most likely to provide that sort of information. Also assess whether your new knowledge changes the maximum story you are pursuing or the minimum story you need. Avoid redundant interviews. If you don’t have time to interview all the desired sources, avoid those who will waste your time with information that is largely redundant. For instance, in a crime or disaster story, one official source may provide all the basic information for your minimum story. Once you get that information, you might want to focus your energy on unofficial sources who can give your story greater human dimension, rather than going to other official sources. If you have time, the other official sources will provide valuable detail, but the maximum story often rests with unofficial sources. If you haven’t identified the unofficial sources yet, other official sources may help lead you to them, while also fleshing out the details of the minimum story. Keep it simple. Mike Williams of Cox Newspapers advises: “Boil it down, keep it simple. Don’t get lost in detail readers don’t care about.” Save time online. Search quickly online for information that will help your story. You might find a report from a source you wouldn’t be able to reach by telephone on deadline. You might find background. You might find contacts. You might find predictions that this would happen. Be careful of your sources and be careful of wasting time chasing dead ends. Depending on what you already know and how tight your deadline is, searching the web can save time or waste time. It’s often worth at least a brief try. Plan for surprises I. If you’re covering a vote or athletic event, be ready for the sudden reversal. Sports writer David O'Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution advises: “If necessary, have a second story going in case the anticipated outcome reverses at the last moment; make sure the running/background material will stand regardless of the outcome.” Plan for surprises II. Kathy Brister of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution advises: “Expect to be surprised. Keep a file of regularly updated quotes, research and color that can give second-day perspective to a breaking news story.” Allow time to file. If you’re not in the newsroom, remember that filing time is part of your deadline work. Early in your work, find a phone line that you can use and make sure it works. Or check to make sure that you have a wireless signal through a service that you can access. Finish writing with enough time to file, and to file again if the first time doesn’t take. Resources to help with deadline writing “Conquering deadline writing,” compiled by Laurie Hertzel (Star Tribune of Minneapolis): http://www.notrain-nogain.com/Train/Res/Write/conq.asp Providence Journal’s “Power of Words” site: http://www.projo.com/words/past.htm#deadline Bob Baker's “Newsthinking” site: http://www.newsthinking.com/story.cfm?SID=130 ; http://www.newsthinking.com/story.cfm?SID=163 Roy Peter Clark ’s “Write Now”: http://poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=3584 Chip Scanlan ’s “Making Friends With A Clock: Time Management for Writers”: http://poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=10466 Chip Scanlan ’s “Storytelling on Deadline”: http://poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=5393 Jack Hart’s “Last-Minute Strategies to Improve Your Copy”: http://www.notrain-nogain.com/train/res/write/last.asp Gregg McLachlan’s “Get the Story – Zeroing in on Spot News”: http://www.notrain-nogain.org/Train/Res/Report/spotnews.asp Chip Scanlan’s “Performance Under Pressure”: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=52&aid=79043
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