“Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Pause. Tap. Tap. Tap.” Best lede ever! But how does the story end? Who was murderer???
Police reports are inaccurate. Ouch! Police officers lie to cover up shortcomings and misconduct. Man, I think I’m just too naïve to be a journalist. Seriously. Who can we trust after all? I don’t want to end up as a bitter person who thinks everybody is suspicious and no one can be trusted.
It’s good to know that in crime stories, both inverted pyramid style and chronological order works. Even though, I think these two structures are mixed many times. Obviously, when a reporter uses chronological order, the story won’t start like this: “Jack and Jill woke up in the morning and decided to go for a ride,” and then end like: “And then Jack suddenly pushed Jill over the cliff. She died immediately.” The news that someone was killed always goes to the top of the story in some form.
I realized that I don’t want to cover accidents, because I can’t really take blood. I can’t even watch ER. And the worst is that in such a situation I have to keep looking for sources and push people to talk about what happened…
Oh, something funny. No, actually it’s rather ridiculous. In the middle of a disaster, when people are losing their relatives and homes, and firefighters are risking their lives, a journalist’s biggest problem is: “I can’t obtain the quotes I need to improve my story!” Ridiculous!! If I were a firefighter, I’d be really mad at journalists…
It was important to learn what’s the difference between being arrested and being charged. And again, this thing with really cautious wording! In print, the demand for accurate wording is acceptable. But how about broadcast, for example? What if libelous things just slip out when I’m reporting?
And finally: how can an editorial get to the front-page in case of a murder trial?
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