This lesson is about some basic principles of journalism.
More precisely, about the things that we expect to see in good media reporting.
Our main questions are: What are the basic things that all news should have?, and
What are the most important features of good reporting and the so called responsible journalism?
Most common principle in journalism is the so called 5 Ws and 1H principle.
This means that your information should contain answers to the
following 5 questions: Who, What, Why, When and Where, as well as How.
If any of these questions remain unanswered, your information is considered incomplete.
You can look at this in a way as a recipe, which contains all the ingredients used to make a cake or a meal.
If any of the ingredients is missing you cannot make the cake or the cake is only partial and unfinished.
A very interesting and useful blog Journalistics provides a convenient illustration of this
rule by referring to the Three Little Pigs Story, which, I assume, is universally known.
After answering these questions, we will have all essential
information about the event in question, or in this case the story.
So, we should start by asking Who was involved?
The three little pigs and the Big Bad Wolf.
So, already we know the characters and their names.
Where did it happen?
Initially outside a straw house, then outside a stick house, and eventually outside the brick house.
When did it happen?
Throughout the day.
So far our answers were rather brief and covered only the basics.
But, What happened?
This answer requires outlining the entire plot and is therefore more demanding.
Every pig made a house out of different materials: straw, sticks and bricks.
Wolf threatened to blow over their houses and destroyed first the straw and then the stick house,
but Pig one and two were able to flee to the brick house.
The wolf failed to blow off the third house, and was burned when trying to enter it through the chimney.
Now, Why did all this happen?
Well, because the Wolf wanted to eat the pigs.
However, as the pigs fled to their houses and mocked the Wolf, he was enraged and tried to blow off all their houses.
And, finally, How did all this happen?
Basically, the first two pigs were rather lazy and reckless, and
they built their houses without much effort and of poor material.
This enabled the wolf to blow their houses off.
However, the brick house was solid, so the Wolf failed to blow
it off too, and then decided to enter it through a chimney.
But the third pig anticipated it, put a pot of boiling water, and the wolf got burned.
As we can see, these questions provide not only a framework required to acquire the
essential information, but also the order that these information should be delivered by.
Famous English writer Rudyard Kipling, even made a cute little
poem about the 5Ws and 1H and the poem reads as follows:
"I keep six honest serving-men, They taught me all I knew;
Their names are What and Why and When, And How and Where and Who."
This poem can be useful as a reminder, so if you tend to forget
some of these 6 elements, the rimes can help you to remember them.
As I mentioned, we should start with basic information
about the characters, time and place of an event, and
then proceed with more in-depth questions about the plot and the reasons or intentions of its protagonists.
This can conveniently be presented in a form of a reversed triangle.
The first thing that you should expect to see as a reader/viewer, or you should
provide as a producer of news, are these most important information - 5Ws and 1H.
The second thing in the news are important details, details that are most relevant.
Finally, you go to provide background information or other general things.
The triangle also shows that these later things, statistically speaking, occupy most space.
However, it is essential to cover adequately the basic questions first.