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FREEDOM OF PRESS Freedom of press is regarded as an inalienable right of people in a free society. It carries with it the freedom and responsibility to discuss, question, and challenge actions and utterances of government, public and private institutions. Journalists uphold the right to speak unpopular opinions and the privilege to agree with the majority. Freedom of press belongs to the people. It must be defended against encroachment or assault from any quarter, public or private. Journalists must be constantly alert to see that the public business is conducted in public. They must be vigilant against all who would exploit the media for self interest. Freedom of the press consists of lawful or statutory protections pertaining to the media and published materials. With respect to governmental information, any government distinguishes which materials are public or protected from disclosure to the public based on classification of information as sensitive, classified or secret and being...

PRÉCIS – AN OVERVIEW A précis is a formal summary of a given subject. A précis does not seek to persuade in regard to a subject, but simply to present it, be that subject an artifact, a person, an event, or even a concept. It should provide the reader an accurate, brief, and well-rounded impression of the subject. Any opinion the writer may hold on a subject should not be reflected in the writing of a précis. A verbal summary composed in this fashion may also be called a précis. PRÉCIS WRITING  Shortening: A précis is a shortening, in your own words, of a text of written work. You are to describe as accurately and briefly as possible the substance or main ideas contained in a text.  Straight: One of the first (if not the first) difficulties to overcome in writing a précis is getting the facts straight. You should make no statements unsupported by the text. Make sure that all you say about the text is factually correct.  Read Carefully (at least three times): Another...

WRITING SKILL Writing is an important form of communication. Writing has been view by the writers in several different ways. It has been agreed that writing is a means of communication made possible through graphic symbols, arranged according to certain conventions to form words, which in turn are arranged to form sentences.  TECHNIQUES OF WRITING OF SKILL Good writers use different writing techniques to fit their purpose for writing. To be a good writer, you must master each of the following writing techniques.  Description  Exposition  Narration  Persuasion  Comparison and Contrast  Description: Through description, a writer helps the reader use the senses of feeling, seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting to experience what the writer experiences. Description helps the reader more clearly understand the people, places, and things about which the writer is writing. It is the most common form of writing. You will find descriptive writing in newspapers, magazi...

FEATURE WRITING A newspaper feature is an article which finds its impact outside or beyond the realm of the straight news story’s basic and unvarnished (with nothing added) who-what-where-when-why and how. The justification, strength and very identity of the feature lie in its presentation of the imagination not, however, in departing from or stretching the truth (not being completely honest), but in piercing the peculiar and particular truths that strike people’s curiosity, sympathy, scepticism, humour or amazement. THE FEATURE STORY Feature stories are ‘soft news’. A feature assignment is often considered a writer’s reward for handling routine news well. The implication is that feature writing is easy. Actually, it makes more demands on writing ability than the straight news story, because it has no specific format. Feature stories can be news stories. Features can be investigative. Features can be in-depth. Features can be for fun. The subject can be anything: places for a community...

COLUMN WRITING The personal opinion of a column writer is expressed on a subject in a column. The writer has a fixed style of writing and he generally writes on fixed subjects and has fixed point of view. However, there are columns in a newspaper where other persons also contribute in audition to the columnist who writes on a variety of subjects such as political, economic or cultural or on sports, radio, films, books etc. A column is written weekly, monthly or bi-monthly, and must be focused on one particular topic. Writer have to be consistent in what he writes, maintain the same tone of voice, and stay focused on the issue at hand. The columnist enjoys the privilege of writing what he pleases and in the manner he wishes. He can make unrestrained and un-inhibited comment on many issues and write about personalities making biting comments on them. Literally a column means a vertical arrangement of items printed or written on a page. Columns are usually those writing which are publishe...

EDITORIAL WRITING An editorial is an article that presents the newspaper's opinion on an issue. It reflects the majority vote of the editorial board, the governing body of the newspaper made up of editors and business managers. It is usually unsigned. Much in the same manner of a lawyer, editorial writers build on an argument and try to persuade readers to think the same way they do. Editorials are meant to influence public opinion, promote critical thinking, and sometimes cause people to take action on an issue. In essence, an editorial is an opinionated news story.  There are four basic kinds of editorials:-  Civic editorials  Policy editorials  Big News editorials  Obituary editorials EDITORIALS HAVE FOLLOWING  Introduction, body and conclusion like other news stories  An objective explanation of the issue, especially complex issues  A timely news angle  Opinions from the opposing viewpoint that refute directly the same issues the writer addresses  The...

  NEWS WRITING News writing is a key skill for journalists, but it helps with other types of writing as well. That’s because news writing is about telling a story quickly and concisely. Anyone can learn to do this, with a bit of help. NEWS WRITING STRUCTURE News writing has its own structure. It’s called the inverted pyramid. This upside down triangle serves as a guide for how you include information in the story. Using the inverted pyramid means starting with the most important information, then putting the next most important info and so on. It can also serve as a guide for writing each paragraph in the story. Start with the most important point, then the next most important and so on. The inverted pyramid has an interesting history. Before digital printing and desktop publishing, news was laid out manually. If a late breaking story came in and the editor needed to make room, then the editor would order another story to be cut. Having the most important information at the t...

WHAT IS WRITING Writing is all that gives rise to an message in general. In Western Culture writing is often only considered as the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols (known as a writing system). Writing may use abstract characters that represent phonetic elements of speech, as in Indo-European languages, or it may use simplified representations of objects or concepts, as in east-Asian and ancient Egyptian pictographic writing forms. However, it is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.  Since writing is a means of communication like listening it involves a writer (producer) and a reader (receiver). Communication through writing involves negotiation or interaction between the writer (encoder) and the reader (decoder), the text, context and task. Literary writing is, in essence, a 'response', a subject...

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM Investigative journalism is when reporters deeply investigate a topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption or some other scandal. According to De Burgh (2000): "An investigative journalist is a man or woman whose profession it is to discover the truth and to identify lapses from it in whatever media may be available. The act of doing this generally is called investigative journalism and is distinct from apparently similar work done by police, lawyers, auditors and regulatory bodies in that it is not limited as to target, not legally founded and closely connected to publicity." An investigative journalist may spend a considerable period researching and preparing a report, sometimes months or years, whereas a typical daily or weekly news reporter writes items concerning immediately available news. Most investigative journalism is done by newspapers, wire services and freelance journalists. An investigative journalist's fina...

Headline Functions An editor’s first task is to correct and refine the copy. The second task is to write a headline that: 1. Attract the reader’s attention 2. Summarises the story 3. Helps the reader index the contents of the page 4. Depicts the mood of the story 5. Helps set the tone of the newspaper   These are the major functions of headlines. Not every headline can accomplish each one of these tasks, but editors who write headlines with these goals in mind will write better headlines than those who ignore them. Good headlines attract the reader’s attention to stories that otherwise may be ignored. The day’s best story may have little or no impact if the headline fails to sell it or attract the reader’s attention. Headlines attract attention in many ways, but often they do so by focusing on how the reader’s life will be affected. Example: If the district council has approved a budget of Rs300 million for the next fiscal year, one approach is to headline the sto...