COMM 337: A basic story format, with links to stories about a food bank and a drag queen

This is also part of Thursday's assignment, and I've highlighted the questions in red below. Post your answers as comments to this post.

For Thursday. Read this post AFTER you read the piece on how to report and organize a news story by Larry Surtees above. It will give you a very useful way of how to write a "soft lede" on any story [don't worry - those terms will be defined in Surtees' piece - at least it's one I've found useful in my own writing.

This format, which I sometimes call a "quote-kebab" story for reasons that will become evident, is kind of a Jell-O mold approach - you take your story and pour it into the mold. And it works for almost anything from a 300-word brief to a five-volume book. Here are the elements of a story, the way I like to explain them:

1. The lede. Watch for what Surtees says about a "soft" lede - an attention-grabbing anecdote, a graphic bit of description, sometimes (but very rarely) a quote that sets the stage for ...
   
   
2. The "nut graf." A paragraph or two that gives the "nut" or kernel of a story. It does what a thesis statement did back in freshman English. Sometimes you'll find it strung out over a couple of grafs. It holds the story together. I never wrote a story worth reading that didn't have a nut graf.
   
   
3. The body. When I was reporting for newspapers, I'd go through my notes and find my best quote and put it as high in the story as I could get it. Sometimes before the nut graf, sometimes right after. Then I'd sprinkle quotes through the rest of the story as much as I could. People like reading quotes. Writing books, including Don Murray's have elaborate advice on how to organize a story. If it works for you, follow it! But, me, I'd just string the quotes together with some transition in between like a shish-kebab. Some of my students took to calling it a "quote-kebab" story.
   
   
4. A "kicker" at the end. See what Surtees says about conclusions. In a soft news story, I'd try to give them something to think about at the end, put a little twist on it. In hard news, I didn't have time.

Below are a couple of examples:

A piece on a Texas food bank in The Guardian a respected center-left newspaper in London, England. Excerpted below are the following elements:

1. The lede. Reporter Paul Harris begins with some colorful description:

They arrived before dawn to wait for the food truck. Middle-aged men, young women with children, the elderly and the retired, mixing with the low-paid on their way to work. As the sun rose high in a blue summer sky, several hundred people clustered in precious spots of shade in Dove Springs, a suburb of the Texan capital of Austin. Some brought garden chairs to sit on.

When the truck from the Capital Area Food Bank eventually came, each person patiently waited to pick up a box containing cans of spaghetti sauce, fruit juice, a few pounds of potatoes and some pears. Connie Gonzales, an Austin city official, watched the crowds of hungry and desperate people and said that they grew bigger each week. "It is the economy. It is bad. Any help these people can get, they really need it," she said.

It is not meant to be this way. Not in Texas. After all, this is governor Rick Perry's Lone Star state. This is the Texas whose record at job creation is at the centre of Perry's bid for the Republican presidential nomination. This is the state whose economic "miracle" is being hailed as a conservative blueprint for the future of America – "Texas exceptionalism" as rightwing columnist George Will glowingly called it. This is the state of low taxes and low regulation and which is so pro-business that corporations are booming here. It is the state that dodged recession and has roared back into recovery; an oasis of jobs in a devastated US economy.

2. A good quote. Here it's incorporated into the lede, in the second graf, "It is the economy. ..."

3. Nut graf. It follows right after the lede. You could almost say it's part ofa the lede.

Yet there is a dark side. It was on stark display in Dove Springs. This is the Texas of a collapsing education system that is failing to educate its children. This is the Texas where millions have no health insurance and a growing low-wage economy means having a job is not enough to provide the basics of life. This is the hungry Texas that the food bank serves.

4. Body (quote-kebab). Read the rest of it in the Guardian. See how it works? Quote + background + quote + background + kicker. There's more background and fewer quotes in this story than in many, but notice how many people the reporter talked with.

5. Kicker. It left me thinking at the end. Also: scroll back up to the lede, and notice how Harris laid the foundation for it in the first graf. See how it ties the story together? Things like that don't happen by accident.

Ellen Tucker, a 60-year-old whose job with a local school system was cut from full-time to part-time. "had a shift to do in a school nearby that started in a few minutes."

With a worried expression she approached an organiser and asked how long it would be for her turn to come. There were still 30 people ahead of her in the line. "People come here to start waiting at 6am," the organiser said.

"Tucker nodded, sadly, saying: "I will bear that in mind next time," and walked off to her car empty-handed. She was grim-faced. She could not wait any longer for the food handout. She had to go to work instead.

For another example, I posted this charming little story to the Mackerel Wrapper on Christmas Day in 2007. I picked it up on the Los Angeles Times' website. The Times hasn't archived it, but here's the story as it appeared on the MassCops bulletin board:

Santa in a G-string gets a DUI

A famous Hollywood location had a seasonally appropriate visitor Sunday night. But when the man got out of his car in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater, it was clear this was anything but a standard visit from Santa Claus.

The driver -- 6-foot-4 and 280 pounds -- was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving, in this case a misdemeanor, police said. In addition to a red Santa hat, he wore a blond wig, red lace camisole, purple G-string, black leg warmers and black shoes.

"We are pretty sure this is not the Santa Claus," Deputy Chief Ken Garner said.

Police identified the man as Rick Carroll, 53, of Long Beach. Officers administered a Breathalyzer test at the scene, and Carroll's blood-alcohol level measured just above the legal limit of .08%, Garner said.

Carroll told police he had consumed two rum and Cokes two hours before he was arrested at 9:30 p.m., Garner said. He was later released on $5,000 bail and could not be reached for comment. His 2008 Chevy Impala was towed to an impound yard, police said.

"There was no Mel Gibson treatment for him," Garner said, referring to the help the actor received from Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies after his drunk driving arrest last year. "He had to sober up and find his own reindeer."

Identify: (1) the lede, (2) the really good quote, (3) the nut graf, (4) the body, aka the quote-kebab, and (5) the kicker? What do the quotes add to the story? POST YOUR ANSWERS AND COMMENTS BELOW.