Reading and understanding newspapers. Пыж А.М. - 18 стр.

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TO A CHILD

Once upon a time

In a far away land, there lived a beautiful

But lonely princess

High in her hilltop castle…

TO A NEWSPAPER READER

DRAGON SLAYER WEDS PRINCESS

Sir Raymond, conqueror of the

fearsome

Merlin Island Dragon, married

Princess

Melanie yesterday in a joyous

ceremony

Attended by thousands.

An inverted pyramid style is different than much writing where you build to

a conclusion, putting together details and background before explaining what the

results are. This type of writing came about in newspapers for a variety of

reasons. First, in the days of the telegraph, the whole story took a long time to

transmit, and starting with the main information (“The battle was lost, 940

killed”) was more important for getting on press immediately than the details

(“Our soldiers crossed the bridge at dawn with fresh supplies…”). Secondly, it

made it easier for the layout people to fit the story in the available space, since

they could just cut off the end. Finally, it also made it much better for had

differing amounts of time to read and were awaiting the main information. Thus,

a big advantage with the news story is that you don’t have to read very much of

it to find out what it is about and, consequently, you can decide very quickly if

you want to read it.

In the example below the first paragraph, the lead, consisting only of 22

words presents the basic information. The goal is to be short, but not too short.

Leads in a traditional new story are informational. The summery lead is widely