Chapter 13

Chapter 13 covered "other basic stories", which our book says would include accident, fire, crime and court stories. In this chapter, I got a new realization of exactly how formulaic journalism can be. There is a style, a format, an equation involved in any kind of reporting.

While I do think that the subject matter is more important than the correct format, the way in which the chapter says these stories should be written does make sense. There's the obvious; collect your basic information [who, what, where, etc.] But what I actually liked about the chapter was that it says the best way to report a story like this is to be at the scene in order to provide description. Based on your deadline, if you have time, you should include description and color into these stories, and get some follow up information, more interviews, etc.

However, I feel that you need to become fairly accomplished before you can get the leisure of writing a lengthy crime / accident / fire story whose deadline isn't the day of / the day after the incident.

I can see what the book means about libel being something to look out for in stories of this nature especially. With the commotion of a crime scene or the scene of a fire, it is important to make sure that all of your information is correct; names, quotes, what caused the fire, what the crime was, etc. This is especially true in the case of court stories. I could see how sitting through a court case could be difficult. Despite how hard something like a court case could be to follow, it is immensely important to make sure the facts stay straight.

While, personally, I don't think that I would particularly enjoy or excel at these kinds of stories, I feel that the book did a good job of outlining how they should be done.