Navigating the News: Story Structure

Every news article should aim to follow a structure. Just like any good story, book, or essay, structure is key in writing – it keeps ideas clear and helps the reader understand main points of a piece of writing. In school, journalists are taught to write and present ideas in an ‘inverted pyramid structure’ in news stories and this structure has been a cornerstone for decades of traditional media writing.

Some journalists may be critical of the inverted pyramid structure and it is not necessarily the only option for a structurally sound news story. While it’s important to keep in mind that every journalist will have their own style of writing, this structure is still one of the most widely used and taught to new journalists. It also removes a lot of editorializing and some self-bias any journalist would naturally have.

Think about an upside down triangle – the ‘wide’ info is on top and the smaller part is at the bottom.

The inverted pyramid structure starts with the most fundamental, overarching facts at the beginning of the story. A headline and lead sentence should tell you exactly what the story is about. Not the entirety of the story, but enough to tell the reader what they are clicking on. This is where you look for the 5Ws – who, what, when, where, and why – all aspects that you should already see before clicking into a news story.

After leading with the most important information, the middle is the crucial information you need to know if you’re reading the story. This is where all the questions you had before you clicked on the story should be answered – details, arguments, quotes, etc.

The ‘extra’ info should come at the end of the story. This could be the background of the individuals or what happened leading up to the event. The idea here is that if the reader has made it this far, they probably want to know those extra details. These details wouldn’t change the understanding of the story or the event, but would give that extra-curious reader the details they’re looking for.