Text - The Backbone of Journalism

When: Week 3

What: Lecture 3

Who: Ms Skye Doherty

Ms Skye Doherty was the guest lecturer, at the third lecture. Skye is a very talented, well spoken woman. Her lecture was engaging, interesting and très magnifique!

Skye's knowledge and experience in the journalism industry is extraordinary and is enough to make any aspiring journalist salivate. What intrigued me most about Skye was  her love and passion for text. This was truly inspiring and was a strong reminder of why I am studying Journalism and Communication at UQ.

The lecture began with Skye's explanation of the inverted pyramid, and ended with her becoming  a Somalian Pirate (only virtually). Arr! I would have never had thought that gaming could be a form of journalism. I guess we learn new things every day, thank you Skye!

The Inverted Pyramid 

Although I have studied journalism in the past through distance education, this was my first experience with the inverted pyramid and judging by how important it is to text, I am certain that it won't be my last. 

So this is how text in the inverted pyramid is structured

The inverted pyramid structure begins with the most newsworthy and important information first. We begin by answering, Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? Skye explained that when deciding what information is most newsworthy and important, we have to consider News values. 

The rest of the inverted pyramid then goes on to expand on the introduction. Explaining Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? in more detail, giving background information.

There was one thing that Skye mentioned in the lecture that hasn't left my thoughts for a second: 

Skye also mentioned that the inverted pyramid structure is "the way we organise news on a whole", whether it's print or online. The difference between the pyramid structure in print and online news is that print is constrained to just text and images. Online news contains text, images, videos, hypertext and links.

With hypertext and links, the reader is able to jump from one news story to another, view related online news and even share the news story through the social media, all with just one click of their mouse.

It's truly amazing how many elements are involved in text. There is the story, the headline, the standfirst, captions, pull quotes, breakout boxes and links, just to name a few. When viewing text I never use to take these elements into consideration but after Skye's lecture all I've noticed when reading print and online text are these elements. I even got to the point where I circled and marked a few of these elements in Saturday's Courier Mail. 

Skye made the importance of headlines evident in her lecture. Listed bellow are 3 significant points that Skye made about headlines, which have resounded with me:

• Headlines are about the mastery of text and wordcraft.
• Headlines created for online news have to be search engine friendly, meaning that the headline has to contain key words or tags.
• Headlines have to contain a verb, make sure they are accurate and true, and avoid puns.                                                  

When Skye mentioned that sometimes journalists have to write 3 or 4 different headlines for one story, my head spun and I began to see stars. I have enough trouble writing one let alone 3 or 4. Headlines are something I will have to work on and practice, and are something I will one day master. 

Skye's lecture was very insightful and overall enlightening. It was one of the best lectures so far. C'était magnifique!