12

Types of News Stories

There are a variety of news story types, but the three that every writer should know are speeches, meetings and obituaries. Sound morbid and boring? Sometimes. It is still broccoli news, after all. But the skills you can glean from such stories reverberate through all news stories. If a reporter knows how to write these three types of news stories, they have the skills to handle more complicated assignments. 

Meetings

Any reporter working for themselves, or a media outlet, will find that they’ll need to cover a meeting. Whether it’s for a government agency, school or local HOA, meetings are where decisions get made. Those decisions impact readers, so meetings must be covered.

Remember the French fry example from a previous chapter? The watchdog role of the press focuses on government agencies such as schools and cities, where decisions are made that affect readers, their families and their wallets. The average reader doesn’t have time to attend every meeting as a watchdog to those in power. This is where reporters come in. Their job is to pay attention.

After posting an agenda and holding a few meetings, the school district in the city where I live changed the school that my children attend. The district’s decision impacted my family greatly, and no news organization covered it. If there were more consistent coverage of the local school district, my family would have had more warning of and input on that fateful decision.

Advance Story

Part of a reporter’s job is to routinely skim the agendas of meetings that might impact their readers and report about those meetings. But as in the case of my school district, learning what happened after the fact won’t help readers. They need to know about meetings before they occur. A good news writer will produce something called an advance story, which is an objective news story about what’s scheduled to happen at a meeting.

Note how this story is written to inform the reader immediately what the meeting is about. Even if the reader doesn’t have a child in the school district, a change in school boundaries can affect property values. An advance story doesn’t have to be long, but it should explain meeting details in a straightforward, well-written way using one of the story formats outlined in Chapter 7.  

An advance story should have a one-sentence lead that starts with the group that’s meeting or the meeting’s topic.

Once a reporter produces an advance story, the next step is covering the meeting. A meeting story is an objective news story published on a deadline immediately after the meeting is over. This type of story uses the inverted pyramid format with a lead of one to two sentences that tells the meeting’s outcome. It might be tempting to report the story based on the agenda order, but that would weigh the story down and focus on the wrong items.

The most newsworthy items are rarely at the beginning of the meeting. Instead, they are often in the section called “New Business” or “Action.” Also, the actual decision on an item is always the last thing a governing body does. They vote on any action at the end of the discussion. Skip chronological order and lead with the vote.

Reading professional journalists’ meeting stories can give a feel of the format. Here’s an example of a meeting story by Phil Diehl of the San Diego Union-Tribune in October 2023.

In this story, Murga starts with the group that’s meeting, then goes into what their action will mean: affordable housing for college students. The second paragraph, or nut graf, summarizes the vote, and the third paragraph is a quote from the meeting that supports the lead. This style is popular in covering meetings.

Follow Story

Sometimes, a meeting story is enough to cover an issue that happens at a meeting. Other times, a follow story is necessary. A follow story is a story about a meeting with in-depth reporting. It is still an objective news story but has the luxury of time, unlike a meeting story, which is written quickly on deadline. For example, if a city council approves a new park, a follow story might find a reporter interviewing people who live near the proposed park, both supporters and opponents, as well as reporting in detail about construction plans and timelines.

The Union-Tribune’s Diehl wrote a follow story in October 2023.

In this case, the story is written a few days after the meeting, exploring the implications of the council’s decision. That requires more reporting than can happen immediately after a council vote. The story is written in the inverted pyramid style and is objective and balanced with comments from people on all sides of the issue. 

Speeches

When I was attending graduate school, I opted for a semester in Washington, D.C., reporting on politics for a newspaper in Nebraska. One assignment was to cover the State of the Union speech by then-President Bill Clinton. I had never covered a speech before. As I settled into the press seating area above the House of Representatives chamber of the U.S. Capitol building, a public relations person handed me a copy of Clinton’s speech.

Covering a speech will be easy, I thought. I can just summarize it like a book report, right?

Sadly, no.

First, you can’t be sure that a speaker will follow a pre-written speech word for word. Second, as with meeting stories, summarizing a speech like a book report is not reader-friendly. A journalist’s job is to sift through a speech, pull out the best parts and create digestible bits.

Before you cover a speech, reach out to the person giving the speech and see if you can get a copy. Many politicians provide them automatically, but that’s not the case with local governments. Some will give you a copy immediately after the speech. Or they may embargo the speech. Embargo is a journalism term that refers to someone giving you information in advance but setting a future date for when you can publish it.

Obtaining a copy of the speech is ideal but not always possible. Whether you have it or not, it’s important to research the topic or speaker to see what they might have done before.

Also, pre-write what you know about the speech. Write about the speaker’s background, using sources and research to draft a few paragraphs about the speaker’s expertise, past and current duties. It will help on deadline and always can be changed or omitted.

Note objective things about the crowd. Are they supportive of or opposed to the speaker? Are they wearing matching shirts or carrying signs? Are they similar ages, races or genders? These traits help your reader understand more about the speech.

Once the speech begins, take notes by hand and record to make sure you have two ways to keep the information safe and accurate. Note the parts of the speech that the crowd reacts to, as that’s often a sign of importance. List all the main topics and jot down any catchy quotes.

When the speech ends, reread your notes and look at the major topics. Rank them and put the three top choices in a summary lead.

The next paragraph – the nut graf – should be about the speech in general terms, such as the date, place, length and crowd size.

The third paragraph should be a pithy quote from the speech about the top thing mentioned in the lead.

The rest of the story should provide more information on items first covered in the lead. Remember to use the pre-written background if appropriate.

If there are other topics that didn’t make it in the lead, the reporter can present them in bulleted form at the bottom of the story. Washington Post reporters Matt Viser and Michael Scherer wrote about the raucous 2023 State of the Union speech.

It does not need to be national news to be an interesting speech story. Here’s an example of a local speech covered by Barbara Henry, my former editor, for the San Diego Union-Tribune in September 2022. 

The third type of news story is the obituary. An obituary is an objective news story about the death and life of a deceased person.

Students often grimace at the thought of writing an obituary, but the story format is among the most important to master. It’s often the last thing written about a person and should be a masterful portrait of a life.

In a 2019 literary paper, Stuti Beri describes obituaries as “one of the most recognized and valued part of western journalistic writings. There are numerous views associated with obituary form, giving it different meanings and definitions across nations and cultures. For some it might be an informative piece of writing, for others it can be a brief character sketch of the deceased accompanied by funeral information, yet others might consider it a piece of literary, historical or social document.”

Beri writes that the idea of the obituary dates back as early as the Roman Empire, where the Acta Diurna, a daily newsletter, contained incidents of the day, including death announcements.

In a 2006 paper, Nigel Starck focuses on the rise of obituaries in the 18th century to accompany daily newspapers in England. The format was transported to America, where it evolved into a different style.

“The American product generally favours a style faithful to news-writing principles so far as timing and content are concerned and is frequently expansive when relating the details of surviving family and funeral arrangements. In Britain, the emphasis is more on creative composition and a recitation of anecdotes,” Starck writes.

According to the study, obituaries in the United States were led by the Philadelphia Daily News, whose obituarist, Jim Nicholson, won a distinguished writing award in 1987 from the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

“Those editors recognized the potential appeal to an ageing readership, started their own pages, and have subsequently transformed the obituary art into an instrument of such prominence in American journalism that, since 1999, an annual conference has been held solely to discuss its practice,” Starck writes.

Readers want to read about people who have died, and journalists need to know how to present information in a fair and readable way.