Pueblog USa
Thursday, March 02, 2006
It’s the 6 Ws, Stupid!
Where’s Ruby Ballantyne (my junior high journalism teacher) when you really need her?
A little item under “Local Briefs: Schools” (pg. 8A) caught my eye in the Chieftain this morning. I’d link to it, but I couldn’t find it on the Chieftain’s web site.
The headline is “Speech winners” and it briefly states “Winners of the all-city public schools debate championships are: ...” and it goes on to lists the winners and the 1st runners-up for three events.
What is wrong is that this item was undoubtedly submitted by someone who either majored in, or extensively studied, speech communications, which means they’ve studied communications, and it was reviewed by an editor who supposedly studied journalism. What is wrong is that this story omits four of the six Ws—who, what, when, where, why and how—that must be covered in order to have a news story. We know who the winners were and we know what the competition was. We do not know who sponsored the event, who the trophies are named after, why the event was held, where it was held, when it was held, or how the winners won. We don’t know how many participants there were. For all we know, the winners and the first runners-up were the only participants.
I don’t know whether it was the fault of the submitter, or the fault of the editor, but this item is journalistically worthless. It is not a “story.”
Considering all the attention that gets paid to high school sports competitions, it seems to me that we could supply just a few more details on this other competition, hmmm? Especially the other events that were held, besides the three listed.
Next entry: It's the 6 Ws, Stupid! (for PR people) Previous entry: Tips for Roamie