Not your typical news story

One of our assignments for my News Writing and Reporting class is to read best newspaper writing by The Poynter Institute for Media Studies. The book is a collection of news stories from around the nation. What is different about these stories is that they don't follow the inverted pyramid scheme; instead, they are unique feature stories who leads are wrapped in different parts of the articles in order to draw readers in.

One story in particular is called "Boys Hidden in Plain Sight," by Todd C. Frankel in St. Louis. The article reminds me of a Criminal Minds episode, where Michael J. Delvin, a 41-year old pizza parlor manager kidnapped two boys four years apart and were kept in an apartment, Apartment D.

A typical lead, a lead that follows the inverted pyramid would state the who, what, where, when and why in the first two paragraphs of the article; instead, Frankel begins with the where and spends about two paragraphs describing this apartment and how it stood out.

He writes, "Apartment D, the one that held two kidnapped boys, sits on the ground floor of a two-story brick building. Seven identical buildings surround it. The '60-era complex has no name. The only distinguishing detail is the color of the doors: one building has black, another green, then white. And orange. Apartment D has an orange door."

Once the you've read the first two paragraphs, you instantly want to know more. Like who lives in this apartment, why this apartment, what is the apartment's significance, etc. Next, Frankel reports on Delvin's personality; however, the reader still does not know Delvin's name until the 9th paragraph of the article. By not giving the reader all the information at once, the reader is more likely to read the story than read the first few paragraphs then put the story down.

Another interesting point about the article is instead of writing a story about a man who kidnapped two boys suburban neighborhood, the reporter took the angle how these boys were hidden in plain sight and nobody suspected a thing.

The father of one of the boys said, "It goes back to everybody minding their own business, not wanting to get involved, not paying attention and putting their blinders on and worrying about themselves and themselves only."

Another person who knew Delvin from a distance said that you never think it is going to happen in your neighborhood. A typical line used in investigative reporting

The story is full of quotes from on-lookers, people who lived in the neighborhood. By using these on-lookers, it gives the story a little bit more meat than just talking to the families of the victims and possibly to the two boys.

When I first started reporting for my schools newspaper, I learned the inverted pyramid, especially since I wrote for the news section. After reading the stories in this book, stories I will probably critique later on in future blogs, I have learned alternative ways to report news stories. One of our assignments for class is to write three stories for our school's paper and I am excited to see how can use some of the techniques in this book and apply them to my own stories.