I spent 50 years writing and editing news stories every day — and the first 22 reading them out loud several times a day. Besides what I learned from colleagues and on the job, my entire journalism education was a one-semester class my senior year in high school, and that turned out to be all I needed for a successful career. I said that out loud to two of my most cherished colleagues one day — both J-school grads — and it was one of my more embarrassing moments.
Still, if you adhere to the venerable 5 Ws, you can do the journalism thing acceptably. As soon as possible once you’ve started writing, you need to explain the Who, What, When, Where and Why something happened or is about to happen. I can’t tell you how many times we threw up our proverbial hands in frustration over a press release that omitted the answer to one or more of these key questions.
And so, whenever I am asked about writing a good news release, I say: Tell us what’s going to happen, when and where (exact time and date with the address of the venue, please), who is involved, and why you’re all doing this. If those five elements are there in any kind of order, the report is a success.
For example: A book fair (what) to benefit Hometown Area Public Library (why) is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, Feb. 30 (when), in the commons at the Hometown Area High School, 321 S. Main St., Hometown (where). The annual book fair is hosted by Friends of the Hometown Area Public Library (who).
The same principle applies to the average news story, or as I like to refer when talking about certain outlets, clickbait. You want to know who, what, when, where and why, and if one or more of those elements is missing, you will click on the story in hopes of finding out. One especially kind of social media headline says something like “A community mourns (who) the death of a mother and six children (what) after a terrible incident last night (when),” and when you click on the story, you discover this happened in Timbuktu, South Carolina (where), thousands of miles away. When a local news outlet reports the news, you expect it to be local news, but that’s not strong enough clickbait sometimes.
Still, when you see that one of those five vital elements was missing, you get a frustrating sense that maybe your time and attention was wasted. And now you know how editors feel when you forget to answer all five questions in your news release.
