Interview Skills and Writing the Lede

When interviewing, reporters go in with an open mind. We ask questions. We listen carefully to the answers. We take detailed notes. When we’re ready to write, we consider what’s most noteworthy, relevant, and compelling.

Assignment 9, Part 1

You will be graded on the notes you took during the interviews Professor Abel conducted on April 18. Your notes must be comprehensive (at least three pages long, 1.5 spacing), and they must paraphrase the speaker’s main points, with particular attention to the most important, compelling, and newsworthy information. Bullet points are fine.

At the top of your interview notes, you must list:

1. A sentence about the main takeaway from the interviews, or the main news;
2. Quotes from the three sources interviewed, each of which should be at least two full sentences;
3. List the who, what, where, when, and why;
4. A sentence about why the news is significant;
5. The full notes (Add these at the end).

Assignment 9, Part 2 

1. You will write the lede (the first sentence) of your final project, which is a hard news story. Keep the lede to 45 words or fewer. Use the day of the class (Tuesday) for the time reference, and the location as Boston University. Attribute the information in the lede to the most relevant source. 

Most hard news ledes contain news and context: what and so what, or what and why? As reporters prepare to write the lede of a hard news story, they ask themselves these questions:

First, what’s the most important, relevant, or compelling thing the public should know? That’s the news.

Second, so what about the news? Why is the news significant, or what’s distinct about it? That’s the context 

Once you have those two bits of information (what and so what, or what and why), you can write the lede sentence of your final project. The lede must be a full sentence with proper grammar, a formal tone (no colloquial language or personal pronouns) and attribution (see above). It must also include the proper day when the news occurred, and the location.

Due date: Check the syllabus

Sample of hard news lede (different topic):

The past year’s population growth rate in the United States was the slowest in a century, which is due to declining births, increasing deaths, and the slowdown of international migration, a U.S. Census Bureau official said on Monday.

The news (what) = The population growth rate in the U.S. was the slowest in a century

The context (why) = due to declining births, increasing deaths and the slowdown of migration

The attribution (at the end) = a U.S. Census Bureau official said this week.

Submit assignment to Blackboard. Use only .doc, .docx, or PDF; no Google Docs or .pages.