LESSONS OF A LIFETIME

Keep reading this blog. You will find how so-called great editors of big newspapers actually allow shoddy, bungled writing because their staff doesn’t have basic journalistic skills. These newspapers include The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Asian Age, The Hindu and The Indian Express – the biggest daddies of Indian journalism and certainly the snootiest.

They can all – ALL – learn great lessons from a tutorial on news skills offered by a student newspaper – Northern Star. According to its website:

Northern Star is the student publication of Northern Illinois University. It publishes Monday through Friday during the academic year and weekly during the summer sessions.
Northern Star was first published in 1899 under the name “Northern Illinois.” It became a daily newspaper in 1965. It’s consistently rated among the best of the America’s 103 daily college newspapers. Its circulation is 16,000 papers a day and reaches not only Northern Illinois University students, faculty and staff, but also the wider city community. It has a website, too.

Here’s a link to the tutorial. http://www.star.niu.edu/nina/highschool/write.html
You might want to check out the main site, too. http://www.star.niu.edu/
Compare the writing there with the crap you see in the Indian papers. Meanwhile, here’s a page from the tutorial:

CLARITY

Newspaper writing is not academic writing. We don't use big words and long sentences to show our readers how smart we are. Newspaper readers are pressed for time.
You have to give them the news quickly, concisely and without a lot of extra words or information they don't need.
Every story competes for a reader's attention ... against other stories, against the TV in the background, against every distraction you can think of.
With every story you write, ask yourself: What is the news here? Why should my readers care? What does this mean to them? Your lead, and then the rest of your story, should spring from those questions.
Then, ask yourself (and the people around you), "What questions will the reader have that I need to answer?" Jot them down, and be sure none are left unanswered.
Write short: short sentences, short paragraphs, short stories. Use simple language. Think hard about every word you use. Is it necessary? Is there a more clear, concise way to say this? Read your story aloud. It sounds dumb, but you'll spot places that don't sound right and might trip up the reader.

STYLE

Good writers are artists. Good news writers are, too. They can entertain, inspire, anger and educate. News stories don't have to follow the old, worn-out, inverted pyramid format. Sure, you'll still use it sometimes, particularly for important, breaking news on deadline. But look for opportunities to veer from that format into something more interesting. Never forget, though, that your No. 1 objective is to tell people what they need to know -- not to show them how much of a literary artist you are.