News Writing: Advanced

Prerequisites:

Delegates should have prior experience of news writing. If you do not have prior experience you can gain this on News Writing: Introduction course.

Course Description:

This course is for those with some experience of news writing who wish to improve their researching and writing skills, work on ways to come up with new treatments for news stories and brush up on media law. The course is ideal for those who are writing news but have not had any formal training in reporting.

You will learn how to make your stories sharper, how to work faster and with greater accuracy and how to improve your news-gathering skills. The course includes practical exercises in writing, interviewing, handling press conferences and rewriting.

This course includes the following modules:

Turning your weaknesses into strengths

• Practical exersises designed to address common problem areas

How to research complex stories

• How to isolate the essential facts that make a complex story news worthy.

How to build up a network of brilliant contacts who give you stories

• The best stories are the ones somebody doesnt want you to get. To get to these stories you need to know people who can either give you the information you need or help you get it. How do you cultivate those contacts?

Writing against the clock

• Almost all news reporting is carried out against a deadline and, as you advance as a news reporter, those deadlines are likely to get tighter. Youll learn some essential tips and tricks to get complex stories written on time. How to anticipate events and plan ahead.

Handling tough interviews

• Dealing with a reluctant interviewee.
• How to deal with going ?¢‚Äöá®?¨off the record
• Avoiding ?¢‚Äöá®?¨no comment

Finding off-diary stories

• Finding your own stories and developing a real nose for news
• Developing your intro-writing and story structuring skills
• Structuring a news story. You will undergo some rigorous practical exercises designed to help you ensure your intro and story structure are as good as they can be.

Covering a specialist area

• The next step for many reporters is to cover a specialist area - from industry or science to finance or politics. How to develop these specialist skills and contacts in a key area.

Latest developments in defamation and privacy law

Questions and answers