hould have taught us a number
of things about the form of the news story. Let us sum them up.

=Paragraph Length.=--We have seen that newspaper writing has a
characteristic style of its own. In the first place notice the length of
a newspaper paragraph. Count the number of words in an average paragraph
and compare it with the number of words in a literary paragraph. We find
that the newspaper paragraph is much shorter. There is a reason for
this. Imagine a 150-word literary paragraph set up in a newspaper. There
are about seven words to the line in a newspaper column and one hundred
and fifty words would make something over twenty lines. Try to picture a
newspaper made up of twenty-line paragraphs; it would be extremely
difficult to read. We glance over a newspaper hastily and our haste
requires many breaks to help us in gathering the facts. Hence the
paragraphs must be short; the very narrowness of the newspaper column
causes them to be shortened. The average lead, you will find, contains
less than fifty words and the paragraphs following it are not much
longer.

=Sentence Length.=--Notice sentence lengths as compared with literary
sentences. You will find that newspaper sentences usually fall into two
classes: the sentences in the lead and the sentences in the body of the
story. The first sentence is usually rather long--thirty to sixty words.
But the sentences in the body of the story are much shorter than most
literary sentences. Why is this? It results from exactly the same thing
that makes the newspaper paragraphs short--the need of many breaks.
Thus, after we finish a lead, we must fall into short sentences. They
need not be choppy sentences, but they must be simple and easy to read.

THE LEAD AND THE BODY OF THE STORY

Our study of the fire story has shown that newspaper stories always have
two separate and distinct parts: the lead and the body of the story. In
writing the story a reporter must consider each part separately,
although the reader does not distinguish between the two parts. Before
writing a word the reporter must decide exactly what facts and details
he is to put in the lead and exactly what fact he is going to play up in
the first line, taking care to begin with the most interesting part of
the story. After the lead is finished he writes the main body of the
story in accordance with the rules of ordinary English composition. Each
part must be separate and independent of the other.

=The Lea