Reporting Styles
Reporting Styles
Ask yourself these questions after you have done your reporting;
| What's unusual about the information I have gathered? How much time or space do I have?
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From my research, observations and interviews, which of the reporting styles is best?
Do I have enough information for an investigative or in-depth series?
Can I tell the story in several parts?
Do I have multiple interviews, statistics, details, description and scene-setting?
What kinds of visual information can I use? Are photographs important or charts, graphs, maps or timelines?
What's the chances this information can be one point of view?
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Objective
The dominant style of reporting in most modern media in which reporters attempt to fairly represent all positions and points of view. The goal is to show no bias in content or presentation. Though even the best such reporting falls short of objective perfection, the style offers the best way to appeal to broad audiences which hold varying values and outlooks such as the audience of Associated Press or other wire services.
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In-Depth/Investigative
This style involves many sources, use of public records, checking and rechecking. The style ordinarily takes days, weeks or even months to do. Media often present the results of such reporting in a series with a beginning piece which identifies the problem and additional parts which provide faces and angles to the story. Media which do investigative reporting usually believe strongly in public service.
Read an award-winning series of articles
about asylum seekers by the staff of the Portland Oregonian..
Read an award-winning
series called The boy behind the mask.
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New Journalism
Those who believe truth can best be revealed through intensely personal styles of writing have developed this approach. It relies on such fictional techniques as dialogue, interior monologue and extensive use of description, anecdotes and scene-setting. Practitioners of this style allow themselves maximum freedom to "paint" their versions of truth rather than restricting themselves to direct quotes and documentable facts, as objective reporters do.
The Poynter. org
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Advocacy
When the reporter or mass medium has an agenda and uses reporting to advance its own objectives, we call it advocacy reporting. Reporters practicing this form begin with a point of view and attempt to gather evidence to support it. No time is wasted attempting to achieve objectivity. Instead, the reporter works to present the strongest case possible in support of his view.
American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association and Anti Drug War information and Anti-Tobacco Group and American Lung Association
The Palestine Monitor
The
Palestine Monitor:
The
Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) set up this website, a gateway to civil
society, as part of the newly created information clearinghouse of the
same name. The clearinghouse conveys unified responses about local
developments from the perspective of civil society, particularly given
the present crisis in the Palestinian territories. The website will also
highlight the real effects the many changes and decisions have had on
Palestinians' lives over the past several years, and also provides
tools for the public to take action on specific issues. take
a look.
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Precision
Reporting based upon research, particularly polls and surveys, fits in this category. Active precision reporting involves the reporter doing his own polls or surveys. Reactive precision journalism reports on the polls done by others. Both methods attempt to present information fairly and impartially and to remove bias entirely.
USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll
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Humanistic
Often reporters can deal with complex issues by entering the story through the eyes of a single person. The Wall Street Journal uses this approach on many of its page 1 stories. Humanistic reporting brings complex, often abstract, issues into sharp focus by concentrating on how those issues touch one person's life. This helps the audience both understand and care about the story's content.
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Marketing approach
Writers using this style employ research to
determine what the readers or viewers want and then develop stories to give it to them. The approach targets special groups of readers with
particular needs, interests and points of view. This pays dividends in circulation or ratings and the approach is gaining momentum as media competition for audiences increases.
Infographics
Stories with figures, statistics or complex descriptions of events, locations or processes lend themselves to this new style. Infographic reporting makes use of charts, graphs, artwork and short bullet-style descriptions molded together by journalists/artists to tell the story more efficiently and entertainingly than words alone could. Online infographics offer more creative approaches And MORE
Click
here for another fun site about the Spurs from USA Today.
Photojournalism
When pictures and words team up to tell a
complete story, we call it photojournalism. Pictures powerfully capture attention and present messages with high impact and emotional power. Pictures also fail to answer many of the questions they raise, so words must step up and complete the story. Although photojournalism does not fit many stories, it may offer the most powerful and effective style of reporting yet developed because of the credibility and completeness it offers. People trust and respond to photojournalism.
Click here to see picture stories.
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Chester F. "Chet" Hunt and San Antonio College
San Antonio College is a college of the Alamo Community College District.
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Updated July 8, 2004