M s. Gokturk
Journalism
Checklist for
News Stories
_______ Does the story have a catchy headline
that informs the reader what the story is about?
_______
Does the headline contain a verb and subject? (In
other words, is there an action that happened to someone or something?)
_______
Does the story begin with the news story lead?
______
Is the news lead organized from most important to
least important?
_______
Does the story go from most important to the least important? (Inverted Pyramid
Format)
_______ Does each paragraph
develop a detail?
_______
Have quotes been used or paraphrased?
_______
Are the paragraphs no longer than 60 words?
_______
Is the whole story less than approximately 600 words?
_______ Is the story
written objectively (no bias)?
_______ Is the use of
the personal pronoun eliminated? (No "I" or "we")
_______ Is the
writing concise, omitting all padding (extra words)?
_______ Is the
spelling and punctuation correct?
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ŠV. Gokturk 2001