Generic Story Template for Reporting and Writing
Here’s how you should turn in every story for class
[Your full name]
Reporting and News Writing
[Date]
Google News headline: A headline that is a maximum of 60 characters and highlights key search terms for your subject. Search terms could include: relevant trending topics (Pfizer vaccine, Milk Crate challenge), notable proper names if they are the subject of the story (Ben’s Chili Bowl, Muriel Bowser) or the most appropriate keyword for the story (body camera, farmers market). The headline should begin with the most important keywords and there should be no wordplay or allusions that can’t be parsed by an algorithm. Please write the number of characters in parentheses after the headline, like so: (58).
Google News summary: A sentence with a maximum of 160 characters that captures the main point of the story and includes any relevant keywords. Again, no wordplay and include the number of characters in parentheses at the end.
Social media headline: A headline with a maximum of 95 characters that tries to draw a human reader’s interest in the story. There’s no need for keywords or proper names unless they are a draw on their own (D.C. chef Jose Andres, for example, is very clickable).
Sources: Name, age, hometown or neighborhood and job title for three sources in the story. The sources should not all be the same type. For example, a story about a rash of purse snatchings done by a man riding a fixed-gear bike could include a police official, a victim and a store owner in the area where the crime occurred. A story about a new sports bar aimed at women could include the owner, a customer and a bartender from a rival sports bar.
Word count: The story should be between 550 and 625 words.
Story: The text of the story should be straight news, following Associated Press style. No first person. No opinion. Standard AP-style lede or anecdotal lede that gets to the point by the third graf. There should be a colorful quote within the first five grafs and one or two more quotes in the story. There should be a minimum of three links to relevant websites or previous published news stories within the text of the story. The story should be ready to publish with no TKs.
Still confused? Here’s an example story.
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” — Ernest Hemingway
