CONSIDER THESE LEADS
Read through these leads and consider what ones give the reader the most information up front. Ask yourself which ones you consider “best” and which ones need improvement. How would you make them better?
• The “Adopt-A-Street” program is a volunteer service project.
• Through the Adopt-a-Street program, students from Anoka-Ramsey Community College (AARC) will begin working with members of the community to help cleanup and beautify the community and the AARC campus.
• The Student Government Association at Anoka Ramsey Community College will begin an Adopt-A-Street Program which will have volunteers cleaning up the streets and beautifying the campus and the surrounding community.
• Student Government Program is offering an on-campus organization to keep the community of Anoka-Ramsey clean.
• More than six hundred students, from eighteen on-campus organizations, volunteer in the Adopt-A-Street program.
• Anoka-Ramsey Community College will be offering students and faculty the chance to help their community by participating in the Adopt-A-Street program.
• With more than 600 students form eight on campus groups pitching in to clean up the streets, the Adopt-A-Street program is growing.
BEWARE OF ATTRIBUTING ‘PEOPLE’ TRAITS TO STATIC THINGS
WRONG: The Adopt-A-Street program will also clean up debris and trash left over from the winter months.
FIX: Adopt-A-Street members will also clean up debris and trash left over from the winter months.
WRONG: The Adopt-A-Street program lets students work with members of the community to help clean up and beautify the community and campus.
FIX: Through the Adopt-A-Street program,students work with members of the community to help clean up and beautify the community and campus.
DON'T USE ADJECTIVES
Like all news stories, your opinion shouldn't show up in a press release. Avoid using adjectives at all times (great, wonderful, amazing, etc.). Also watch out for other loaded words that give away what you think of something.
KEEP YOURSELF OUT OF THE RELEASE
Remember that news releases are like news stories: you need to keep yourself out of them. Refrain from using words like “I,” “our,” “we,” and “us.”
PROPER FORM INCLUDES CONTACT INFORMATION
Remember to include the contact information at the top of the press release. See page 512 in your textbook for the proper form for press releases. It doesn’t do any good to send out information on a program if reporters and other interested parties don’t know who to contact for more information.
Adopt-A-Street Program
11200 Mississippi Blvd
Coon Rapids, MN, 55433
Release Date: Monday, Sept. 20, 2010
CONTACT: Tesha Christensen
Office phone: (763)-555-1111
Cell phone: (763)-653-8279
Email: Tesha.christensen@anokaramsey.edu
Friday, November 25, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Classroom bulletin: Story 6
Read these leads through with your newly-sharpened reporter’s eyes. What is missing? Do these leads identify the subject of the feature to the reader? Do they grab your attention?
•Anoka-Ramsey Community College Soccer Coach Brady Eichhorn-Hicks has drastically turned around the schools' soccer program into one of the most successful men's programs in the region.
• Kathryn Kysar first realized she was a writer in high school.
• When Mary Jacobson left the world of corporate marketing over eight years ago to simply take a position that was close to home, she didn't envision that she would eventually have the ambition to advance her career in the education field.
• Educational success along with athletic success is what every student-athlete strives for, and that's what Anoka-Ramsey is all about. Three years ago, Anoka-Ramsey Community College added an addition to the faculty board, athletic director, Dave Alto.
• How many people can truly say they love their career? Philosophy and Ethics professor Kristen Klamm-Doneen of Roseville, Minn. said, “Honestly, there is not another job that I'd wish to have instead of this one.”
• Jeff Knapp, an instructor at Anoka-Ramsey Community College, has a passion for science and the outdoors. Each year he shares this enthusiasm with students by bringing them on a weeklong camping trip into the wilderness of South Dakota where they can experience classroom material in real life.
• Trying to better the world one person at a time is Christopher Guzik's vision and goal in life.
GENERAL COMMENTS
• You don’t need to capitalize the names of programs or classes. Nor do you need to capitalize bachelor’s or master’s, but be sure to specify that you are referring to a bachelor’s degree.
• Don’t use present tense for words of attribution. Instead use past tense.
X) Said not says.
• Remember to use short paragraphs in news stories. Go through when you’re done writing and break up what you have. The average in a news story is one to three sentences long — not the 4-10 you see in research papers.
• When speaking about the degree someone has, use “earned” instead of “got.”
IT DOESN’T LOOK RIGHT ON PAPER
When we speak, we use slang and we change what we’re saying mid-sentence. We might start talking about a singular entity and then switch to plural. If you write down exactly what someone says, it will look and sound terrible! As a writer, you want to just use quotes that sound good and are grammatically correct. For the others, paraphrase. You don’t want to leave someone sounding uneducated and stupid when they’re not.
Classroom bulletin: Story 5
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THESE LEADS?
Here are the leads from your stories last week. Read them through and think about which ones are entertaining? Solid with the basic information? Which make you want to read more? Which just confuse you? How would you do things differently?
• The Anoka Ramsey Community College men's soccer team captured their 3rd consecutive Region XIII championship by defeating local rival, Century Community College this past Sunday on the Anoka-Ramsey campus soccer field.
• Every step further into the Haunted Corn Maze of Paul Bunyan Land in Brainerd, Minn., brought excitement and thrill, Saturday, Oct 22nd. “It was really scary. I heard the chainsaw and ran,” said Logan Lene, 13, of St. Francis, Minn., a visitor to the attraction.
• Cordelia Anderson, a prominent speaker and advocate for the prevention of sexual violence, spoke at Anoka Ramsey Community College's Mental Health and Wellness event yesterday afternoon.
• The Jack-o-Lantern is an essential part of Halloween. For many families that means a trip to the pumpkin patch. Choosing a patch can be tricky, but a good one will keep families coming back year after year.
• Rebecca Bowers, manager of a small business shop called Crystal House, arranges an annual fashion show. This public event took place on Saturday, October 15th in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
• Approximately 180 State of Minnesota employees attended an open enrollment meeting at a local state office to learn about any upcoming changes to their state benefits.
• Each Tuesday afternoon, Tina Perpich leads a free yoga class offered to the students and faculty at Anoka-Ramsey Community College in Coon Rapids.
• Wednesday, October 19th, heading into their last regular season game with a record of 9-6-1 Anoka-Ramsey Women's soccer pulls out with another win.
• As world-renowned designers, noted fashion photographers, socialites, media, and the rest of the fashion community gather to descend on fashion weeks worldwide, DHL Global Forwarding continues to support the fashion industry.
• Currently only 3 out of every 100 people in America donate blood.
• Diversity and tolerance is a very hot topic in the modern world that attracts all kinds of people with differing views. That could at least been implied from the people in attendance to a showing of the PBS documentary about the Stonewall uprising.
GENERAL COMMENTS
• I am delighted to see so many of you taking advantage of the extra credit by submitting a photo with your story. Not only does it benefit you right now (with the extra credit), but it makes your story stronger. If you think back to what folks noticed in newspapers, the image that accompanied the story made an impact and pulled readers into the story. It’s great to use a combination of words and images to get your point across.
• Please remember to submit photos as jpg attachments to the dropbox. Images in Word docs are just screen images and can't be used for publication.
• Remember that when writing a news story off an event, you don’t have to write about things in the order that they happened. Instead, pick what was most important. Then write about what was second most important. Then third, etc. You also don’t have to include everything that happened if you run short on space or it just wasn’t that important.
• I am not able to comment on whether you spelled all the names correctly in your stories. I recommend getting in the habit of doublechecking the spelling of all names after you've written the story.
NOT YOUR JOB TO BE A CHEERLEADER
When you interview people and develop a relationship with them, it can be very tempting to turn into a cheerleader. You like them, so you want their play or concert to be successful. You want to praise what they’ve done. You want to let them know you think they were great.
But that’s not your job. (Unless you’re writing a review, anyway, and then it’s still not your job, but you get to state your opinion.)
Your job is to remain an unbiased reporter who gives the facts. Then the readers can decide for themselves.
PUNCTUATE QUOTES CORRECTLY
Many of you are punctuating quotes incorrectly. I recommend that you brush up on your knowledge of quotes by viewing a video I have created.
View video here:
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