Text is the very essence of journalism. It defines journalism. Text exists across every medium of journalism - print, television, radio, and blogging. This is because of its speed, flexibility, accessibility, and portability.
One structure in which text is organised is called the ‘inverted triangle’. This discipline is used for ‘hard news’ to strengthen its communicative quality, as well as improve its economical value. The ‘inverted triangle’ is the key to holding your audience’s attention. No wonder it dominates reporting.
It can be representing in the following diagram.
The most important news is presented in the opening sentence of the report. The crux, success and execution of this sentence lie in a clever summary of the 5 w’s:
- Who
- What
- Where
- When
- Why
After this opening sentence, the bulk of the story must be presented; elaborating on the initial summary. Relevance will decrease, while quantity will increase.
With the emergence of “new media”, the use of text is changing. Hypertext allows journalists to use a very creative, and new form of text organisation. Online platforms no longer allow text to only be dictated by linear narrative. The web gives more choice to news sites. Videos, tweets, statuses, forums, metadata and tags are changing the way we use text. The possibilities are limitless.
As we delve into a new and unknown media ecosystem, one must consider the possibilities of destroying ‘quality’ journalism? Journalism, long ago, was an expensive and time-consuming field. Now we live in the world of minimalism… The world of 140 characters. But the real question is, can one find quality in 140 characters of text?
No comments:
Post a Comment