In keeping with its essential simplicity of style, the good news story is clear, concise and forceful.
CLEARNESS
Simplicity of structure and diction implies clearness. The story that would appeal to the masses defeats its purpose if not readily intelligible. The average newspaper reader has neither time nor inclination to puzzle over an involved sentence or to consult a glossary for the definition of a technical phrase.
Scientific terms, if not in general use, should be translated into everyday English. This is true also of legal phraseology and other words and expressions of purely technical meaning. Let your story explain itself. If Mrs. Jones got a divorce, say so; don’t confuse the reader with the verbiage of the courts. Get as close to the speech of the people as good taste and correctness will allow. Vulgar and silly slang is not tolerated by the good newspaper, but an expressive colloquialism may be used to avoid pedantry.
In striving for simplicity and clarity beware of dullness. “Fine writing”—the kind that speaks of a barber shop as a “tonsorial parlor”—has no place in the modern newspaper office, but there is a demand for the writer who can infuse freshness and vigor into his story. The style of your story should be simple, its meaning clear and its diction pure. Try also to give it that element of originality and charm that distinguishes the best writing from merely good writing. Newspaper English, as used by skillful writers, displays often, in its well-turned phrases, its quick description and its “featuring” of the leading facts, the touch of the true artist. For all this the story is none the less, in the manner of its telling, simple and clear.
CONCISENESS
“Boil it down” is an injunction frequently heard in the newspaper office. The requirements both of the public and of the newspaper demand that the story be concisely told. The hurried reader has no time for the story clogged with unnecessary words and trivial detail; the newspaper has no space for it.
Daily there comes to the newspaper a stream of copy from various sources. The local room contributes its share, while the telegraph editor receives scores of dispatches from special correspondents, besides the regular service of one of the great news gathering organizations. It would be neither possible nor desirable to print all of the immense amount of news matter received. The paper as the reader sees it is the result of a process of careful selection. Many stories have been omitted, some of them having been “killed” after progressing as far as the type forms, and others have been “boiled down” to a few sentences.
The news writer, then, should study to be terse. Verbosity merely makes work for the copy reader’s pencil. Try to say in one word what the writer who strains after effect might put into half a dozen. Don’t say “devouring element” when you mean “fire.” “Fire” is a good Anglo-Saxon word that everybody understands and uses—and it is twelve letters shorter. “A house is building” is simpler, shorter and more effective than “A house is in process of construction.” “The society met last night and elected officers for the year” is the simple, natural equivalent of “At a meeting held last night the society perfected its organization for the year by the election of officers.”
Wordiness, like bad spelling, is a sign of mental laziness, and the newspaper office has no room for the lazy.