How to Write Newsworthy Articles
News articles must be factual and accurate, but they also need to be interesting and engaging. It can be challenging to strike that balance, especially when you’re writing for a news publication. But, as with any genre of writing, practice makes perfect. Here are some helpful tips to get you started:
To make a story newsworthy, it needs to be something which happens recently, is unusual, interesting, significant or about people. The more of these criteria a story meets, the more likely it is to be newsworthy.
Crime: Any crime can be news, but more serious crimes generally make bigger headlines. Other types of news stories include road traffic offences, burglaries, robberies, arson, corruption and forgery. Money: News about fortunes made and lost, taxes, the Budget, school fees, salary increases and compensation claims make good news stories. It is not only large sums of money that make the news, though; the little girl who gives only ten cents to a fund-raising event is more interesting than the businessman who donates $100.
A good way to test whether a story is worth reporting is to ask yourself the following questions: What, when, who, where and why? Obviously, the answers to these questions will vary from one society to another. For example, if a farm wall collapses, killing a cow and a pig, it is likely to be of more interest to people in rural areas than to those in urban areas. The same applies to a coup in one country being newsworthy while in another it is not.
It is not always easy to determine what makes the news, but there are some rules which are generally recognised by journalists and editors. These are the ‘rules of thumb’ which help them decide which events are to be included in their newspapers and bulletins. They are not based on market research, as some critics claim, but on a judgment of what is newsworthy which changes from time to time.
When writing a news article, consider the audience of the publication you’re writing for. It’s important to keep this in mind because it will guide you on how to write the article and what facts to include. The more specific your demographic is, the more relevant the information you provide will be to them. For example, if you are writing for a local newspaper, the demographic may be the residents of a particular city. If you’re writing for a national publication, the demographic might be the entire population of the United States.