It's not rocket science.
The lead paragraph (or two) of a news article should mention who, what, where, when, why, and how, if those facts are known. The same is true of any writing that seeks to inform. Do you remember when you were first introduced to the "5 W's and an H"? I don't either, but I know it was early in high school.
So you must ask yourself, what's wrong with the Newsless aka Post and Courier? In Wednesday's edition an article about Horizon Middle Academy (who) informed the public that this charter school will not open its doors (what) next fall (when) because of lack of funding (why) caused by its approval through the SC Public Charter School District instead of through CCSD (how).
Oh, did I leave something out?
You mean WHERE? WHERE? [See Opening Farther Out on Horizon]
Yes, the reporter left out the fifth "W" because , I suppose, if you have to ask, you can't afford to know this information.
And the editors (they still do edit, don't they?) didn't care or didn't catch it or assumed that anyone reading the P & C lacked the same amount of curiosity that the editors did.
Okay, enough of being cute. It's on Johns Island and is being organized as an alternative to Haut Gap Middle School. I know because I had to look it up. So many potential charters have been announced in the last year that I couldn't remember which one Horizon was either.
If I believed in the conspiracy view of history (which I don't), I would assume that the P & C didn't want to give Horizon any more publicity than it was forced to and figured that saying where the school would be located would only encourage those misguided parents to seek out Horizon in place of sending their children to a failing school.
No, I believe in the stupidity view of history. According to that view, what others chalk up to conspiracy is easily explained by the usual incompetency and imbecility.
Remember, we are talking about the P & C.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
You couldn't be more wrong about this: "The lead paragraph (or two) of a news article should mention who, what, where, when, why, and how, if those facts are known. The same is true of any writing that seeks to inform."
While that is true of hard news stories, it does NOT apply to "any writing that seeks to inform." Human interest stories, feature articles, opinion pieces and many other forms of writing do not (and should not) always follow the model you're describing.
And thank goodness for that. Otherwise, there would be no such thing as varying writing styles. Everything would be written in the dry news format.
Well, I stand corrected. However, any writing that seeks to inform should have the information in it somewhere!
"Fool on the hill" just came on the radio. Did someone request it for Bable?
Post a Comment