1What is online journalism? - Ayo Menulis FISIP UAJY

110 Journalism Online
matter how wonderful you are at conjuring up colourful
phrases or witty remarks, if you have not got a clear idea of
what you want to say it will show.’
In traditional news writing, the structure of the story, in
particular the introduction or lead, can be heavily influenced by
the imperative of delivering maximum news value to your readers
quickly. This is particularly true in action or event driven stories
such as incidents of crime or accidents. Journalists often say these
stories ‘write themselves’, reducing the need for original approaches
or perspectives from the reporter. ‘Ideas’ here can mean
simply the skilful distillation of essential information infused with
a zest of fine observational detail.
However, issue or information driven stories are a different
matter. Here the journalist is expected to explain and interpret and
much of this comes from the careful structuring of the introduction
and the rest of the story.
So, as journalists we write with ideas on how to convey our
message, be it factual information or human emotion. But we do
also write with words. You can structure your story with absolute
clarity but then cloud your readers’ understanding with dismal
language.
You need both clear structure and the right words; and when
ideas and language come together effectively, the journalist finds
their ‘voice’, their distinctive view and its expression.
Story construction is the preoccupation of most writers. But in
journalism it has a particular importance. Reporters have to juggle
three essentials when writing their stories:
identifying the elements of the story that will be of greatest
interest to their readers;
structuring the story in a way that will deliver these elements as
effectively as possible;
presenting them in a way that will make maximum use of the
medium they are working within and engage the maximum
number of readers for the maximum length of time.
In newspapers and broadcasting this usually means producing a
single story with a carefully constructed beginning, middle and