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5.3: The Information you need for a News Story

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    294862
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    News reporting is a long process that involves collecting information, facts and comments and checking them carefully for accuracy. Journalists sometimes witness stories first-hand, but more often they find out about stories from others. Once you receive a story idea from someone, you should first verify the information to make sure you really have a good story and check against the list of news values in chapter 4 that your story really is a news story. Then you start with the information gathering.

    As mentioned earlier, the information a journalist collects should answer questions that are commonly known as the 5 W’s and the H: who, what, where, when, why, and how. These questions help you identify the information you need for your story. You should use the answers to these questions to guide you when you start writing or compiling your story to make sure that you present all the necessary information to your audience. The answers to the 5 W’s and the H should be present in ALL news stories, there are no exceptions. The 5 W’s and the H form the basic building block of all news stories because they help you make sure that you have all the facts – that you are telling the full story. Below are some examples of questions you might ask. Not all these questions will be valid in all stories but see this as a checklist when gathering information for news stories.

    Who:

    • Who is involved in this story?
    • Who is affected by it?
    • Who is the best person to tell the story?
    • Who is missing from this story? Who has more information about this?
    • Who is in conflict in this story? Do they have anything in common?
    • Who else should I talk to about this?

    What:

    • What happened?
    • What is the point of this story? What am I really trying to say?
    • What does the reader, viewer, or listener need to know to understand this story?
    • What surprised me? What is the most important single fact I learnt?
    • What is the history here? What happens next?
    • What can people do about it?

    Where:

    • Where did this happen?
    • Where else should I go to get the full story?
    • Where is this story going next? How will it end?
    • Where are the sources from?

    When:

    • When did this happen?
    • When did the turning points occur in this story?
    • When should I report this story?

    Why:

    • Why is this happening? Is it an isolated case or part of a trend?
    • Why are people behaving the way they are? What are their motives?
    • Why does this story matter? Why should anyone watch, read, or listen to it?
    • Why am I sure I have this story right?

    How:

    • How did this happen?
    • How will things be different because of what happened?
    • How will this story help the reader, listener or viewer, or the community?
    • How did I get this information? Is the attribution clear?
    • How will readers react to the story?

    When you start out as a journalist, you should add this checklist to your notebook, or somewhere on your smartphone, and constantly refer to it while gathering information so that you can make sure you are gathering all the information you need. Many long-time journalists would tell you how they had to go back to a source or a scene where something had happened because they did not gather all the information and their stories could not be published or broadcast without full and accurate information. You will save yourself a lot of time and energy if you do it right the first time.

    The importance of collecting enough information and verifying everything cannot be overstated. In August 2021, two well-known South African singers, Killer Kau and Mpura, died in a car accident, and rumours at once started circulating on Twitter that DJ Kabza De Small had also died in the same accident. This was not true and shows the danger of relying on social media only for collecting facts about stories. Kabza had to publicly state that he was still alive so as to stop the rumours. Always make sure you have all the correct information before you write or compile a news story!

    However, what exactly are “facts” in journalism? News stories usually rely on comments from sources – for example, eyewitnesses may comment on what they saw at a scene; experts may provide their opinion on important events; or government officials may make comments at a press conference. Some young journalists find this confusing – what is the difference between verified facts in a news story and the opinions and comments of sources who are talking about their experiences? It is important to remember that opinions and comments about events also count as factual information in news stories.

    Many journalists rely on the commentary of various people to create their news stories. Think of it like this: Someone who witnesses an event or who expresses an informed opinion about something is also providing you with facts about what they saw. A witness of an event can be seen as an “expert” because they saw what happened. If they tell you what happened and someone else tells you a similar story, you can use this information as facts in your story to explain the event to the reader. Always verify information, speak to various sources, and make sure the information you get from different people corroborates what others have said. Also check information against what official sources, for example, the police, have said.

    Let’s take the example of a protest that turned violent. Shop owners in the area were attacked by protesters. For this story, you can speak to protesters and shop owners to get information. They may all be quite angry and emotional and provide two slightly different versions of the story. The protesters may claim that they had a right to attack the shop owners because they felt prices were too high. The shop owners may feel they were attacked without reason. These are two different views of the same story. Provide both these views to your audience. But then also speak to the police to get an official view. This way you can be sure that you are telling the audience all sides of the story; each person who was involved experienced events differently, and what you do as journalist is to share the individual experiences with your readers. By using various sources from both sides, your information will be trustworthy and count as facts because you spoke to everyone.

    Similarly, if you ask experts their opinion about something, their comments and interpretation of events count as valid information for your story. Let’s say South Africa built a space rocket and launched it successfully. You need comments from people for a story about the rocket launch. There are various sources you can speak to, for example, scientists, lecturers at universities, and mechanical engineers. They may all provide you with their viewpoints based on their expertise. By putting their comments together, you will be able to create a complete story because you will provide your audience with a variety of views from various experts, covering different aspects of the story.

    It is crucial to use many sources and to identify them correctly by providing their full names and titles (what they do, which would explain why you spoke to them). This is called attribution (see the discussion on sources below). Attribution makes your story trustworthy.


    This page titled 5.3: The Information you need for a News Story is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.