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2 The body of the story consists of facts that amplify or add to the statements in the lead. Usually these facts answer questions that come naturally into the
readers’ mind after he reads the lead. 3 Within the body of the story, facts are arranged in the order of descending
importance. Summarizing the facts and all important statements in the first section or lead
has become the rule of thumb in the news writing. The form used by typical news stories is called the inverted pyramid. This form allows the readers to grasp the main
idea of the story without reading it thoroughly and the editor to shorten the story since newspaper has limited pages.
Figure 2.3 describes the inverted pyramid form:
Details of least
important Summary of all important
facts
Facts of secondary important
The Inverted Pyramid Form
Figure 2.3. The Inverted Pyramid Form Reddick, 1941:47
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d. News Writing
“News writing doesn’t mean only the physical act of putting words on paper rather it is a process, 90 percent of which is not putting words on paper”, says Berner
1992:1. This is supported by Ishwara 2005:95 in that in the process of news writing, a journalist must write with his heart and brain. The process of news writing
begins with reporting and collecting all the necessary information. The next step is organizing the information and starting to write the lead and the body. When the news
is already written, it must be evaluated and re-written. The process of re-reporting is needed when the information collected is insufficient.
Reddick 1941:56-58 provides three steps in writing a news story after collecting the necessary information. They are:
1 List the facts in accordance with their importance This first step can be done mentally or on paper. A journalist should take
5W+1H What, who, where, when, why, and how as the formula. 2 Write a condensed statement of the important facts
It is also called as writing the lead. All the most important facts are written in the lead.
3 Write the body of the story The less important facts are written in the body. The body also explains the
outlined facts in the lead more detail.
3. Journalistic Extracurricular
According to
Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 1996:412, extracurricular means something that is “related to officially or semiofficially
