Newspapers were once heralded as the champion of information sharing. Then radio and television news broadcasts became the norm – and now, the Internet and social media are where people turn to find the latest scoop. Although physical newspapers have definitely been relegated to a backseat position (and more often used to line the litter box), old timey newspaper journalists adopted a few unique writing tricks that are still used even today!
The shape of efficiency
According to Neil Taylor’s book Brilliant Business Writing: How to Inspire, Engage and Persuade Through Words, journalists often structure their articles using the “inverted pyramid”, which represents the distribution of facts across an article.
“At the beginning of the story, you tend to get an awful lot of facts, and they tend to be the answer to the questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? And how?” explains Taylor. As you progress through the article, the flow of facts trickles down to small details (like contextual background, references to other news stories, quotes or opinions from lesser stakeholders and so forth).
The rationale for doing so is simple:
1. Journalists don’t expect readers to read all the way through
Statistics show that the majority of readers only bother reading 50 percent of an article. From a pessimist’s point of view, this means that journalists don’t have to put in as much effort into their writing once they have covered all the important points – not that we recommend you should do this, as the people who do read further may notice a sudden decline in writing quality!
2. Adaptability and ease of editing
Unlike online news reporting where each article gets a standalone page, traditional newspapers needed to consider layouts, article placement and space allocation. Furthermore, layouts often required flexibility, as a frontpage story written at 11 am might get pushed aside in favour of breaking news that occurs at 5 pm. In such cases, the prior article would likely receive less space allotted to it, meaning that the editor would have to trim out portions of the article – it’s a lot easier to just delete the last few (filler) paragraphs than it is to snip out words and sentences across the entire article.
Beyond journalism and publishing purposes, this style of writing does serve a clear benefit. Like the military and their BLUF-formatting (Bottom Line Up Front), having all your key details up front is simply more efficient for quick information absorption. Furthermore, there’s very little downside to doing so – some might argue that having a more balanced spread of information keeps the article more enjoyable to read, but we can still do so while keeping the essentials at the front.
Headline games
It’s no surprise that you need a good headline to attract readership, but did you know that editors use different headline styles depending on where each article will be placed? Regardless who wrote what, the number of articles in the paper and what each is about, the editor’s goal is to get readers to go through the entire paper.
In any newspaper, the most important articles are always placed at the front. These usually feature breaking news, death, new government policies and such. As you skim through the paper, the topics of the subsequent sections become less intense – such as lifestyle articles, travel-related news, opinion pieces, the weather and sports. Taylor recommends comparing the frontpage’s headlines with those at the latter.
Let’s use a pair of articles from The Guardian as an example (the same rationale is also applicable to online articles, as the editor needs to choose which articles are on the landing page and which have to be scrolled to):
Frontpage story: Afghanistan – At least 10 dead after huge bomb rips through Kabul mosque
Secondary/tertiary story: TechScape – Why can’t crypto exterminate its bugs?
Notice how frontpage stories have headlines that are straightforward and avoid sensationalism, whereas latter stories are more obscure to tickle your curiosity. “[Frontpage headlines] can afford to be factual, but fairly flat because the editors are banking on the fact that we’ll find the subject of these stories interesting enough that we’ll read them without too much persuasion,” writes Taylor. “In fact, that’s why these stories are at the front of the paper, because the editor believes these are the stories that will be most important to the readers of this paper.”
From the second headline, the content of the story becomes less apparent. Compared to death and tragedy (which is relevant to everyone), cryptocurrency is more of a niche subject – if editors used a straightforward headline, that’d only attract readers who are interested in crypto.
“Because [the editors] know that these stories are less intrinsically interesting, they’ve put them towards the back of the paper, and they’re having to pull a few stunts to get you to read them,” Taylor describes. “So these headlines are deliberately cryptic, intriguing, designed to tempt you to read something that you might otherwise dismiss.”
What’s the takeaway?
· When writing for lengthier publications or works (like brochures or even annual reports), have a talk with your client to see if you are allowed any creative leeway for the headlines – like newspapers, the latter sections of annual reports tend to be skimmed over in favour of the earlier sections – a more creative headline may remedy this.
· For standard length articles, newspaper-format headlines can be applied to your headings. Keep your main headline straightforward, but have some fun with your subheads to entice your audience to read (or at least skim) through the rest of the article.
As copywriters, we should always be on the lookout for ways to improve our writing. Studying specialised forms of writing – such as newspaper journalism – provides new insights and techniques that make us better writers overall.