Chapter four summary

Chapter four focuses on writing editorial stories.

The differences in editorial stories and news stories is primarily in advocacy and opinion rather than objective 'he said, she said' coverage of what happened the day before.

The Editorial page of a newspaper is meant to be a public forum for the readers to not only learn about the advantages or problems with a proposed change in local policy, but a chance to weigh in on the decisions themselves.

This can be accomplished through letters to the editor, polls and word on the street interviews.

For the Editorial page to succeed in this mission, it needs good writers. As mentioned in chapter one, good opinion writers are good reporters. They also need to know good writing techniques--ways to draw the reader into their stories.

There are several ways to accomplish this: the 'neck of the vase method' for instance where a writer will focus in on a single incident or person before revealing a larger problem or trend.

The 'imagine with me' structure invites the reader to join the writer in a described personal experiance scenario in order to leave a vivid idea in the reader's mind.

Other techniqus such as the 'Question' or 'We're all in this together' structures give editorial writers a way to pull the reader in and point out the need for change or attention to be paid to a certain issue.

Regardless of the technique used, an editorial writer needs to make sure his story accoplishes three things: SEA--stimulate, explain and advocate.

While traditional news stories answer who, what, when, where, why and sometimes how, the editorial needs to say why it is important to the reader--what it means to them.