Week 3: Assignment and Student Response

TuesdayApr 10 at 11:47am

Manage Discussion Entry

The first element in news writing is finding the focus of a story. Therefore, viewers do notice the headlines before reading an article. The headline is the introduction to the story, or synopsis if you will. However, some headlines are well written, and other headlines are not in complete sentences. According to Kershner (2012), the caption of an article should be in the active voice. In the local newspaper, the Aiken Standard headlines that caught my attention were Warrenville woman charged after police discover stash house, Pain, fear are four-letter words, Aiken City Council considers water, sewer rate increases at Monday night meeting and Reurbished [sic] Aiken library elevator fails inspection, second inspection scheduled.

I read all the articles except for one. I thought the pieces were interesting and I did not turn astray out of disinterest, which is an essential reminder that journalists should write for the audience.

I did start reading the article Pain, fear are four-letter words, which is a featured story. However, I did stop at the fourth paragraph when the author started to talk about being a veterinarian and pets in pain. What had my interest at first when I read the headline is that I will get information about dealing with pain. Although I would like to read up on articles to help better my chronic pain with my illness, the headline tricked me. A writer captures the reader’s attention and keeps it is to have a great headline, a substantial lead, and keep the article grammatically correct with facts.

Tolanda

References

Kershner, J. (2012). The elements of news writing (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Woltz, H. (2018, April 10). Pain, fear are four-letter words. Aiken Standard. Retrieved from https://www.aikenstandard.com/lifestyle/pain-fear-are-four-letter-words/article_f3180434-3cd6-11e8-9269-2377683fd480.html