Comments on: Appreciating the inverted pyramid

By: geraLd Flores

geraLd Flores — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:07:42 +0000

Really good post. My news reporting professor told me once, the means of disseminating news have changed but the process of reporting it stays the same

By: links for 2009-04-20 – Innovation in College Media

links for 2009-04-20 – Innovation in College Media — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:02:49 +0000

[...] Notes from a Teacher – Appreciating the inverted pyramid "As people increasingly seek out news, and as the concept of single source or single authority gets increasingly weak, the need to hook us with clever ledes or writing tricks goes away, and the value of quick, compact, well-presented basic information increases, at least when it comes to a lot of what we’ve traditionally defined as news." (tags: writing journalism online) [...]

By: Cool Links #33: The Yearbooks Are Coming, The Yearbooks Are Coming « TEACH J: For Teachers of Journalism And Media

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:55:59 +0000

[...] Canadian J-School Prof. Mark Hamilton writes that in the web era we seriously need to revisit the inverted pyramid with our students. I agree. Web news is all about getting the most information in the quickest [...]

By: Peter Ralph

Peter Ralph — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:54:42 +0000

I think you are 100% correct Mark.

In my own field (video) the lesson is even more cogent. Text is non-linear – you can scan back and forth intelligently and reliably – not so with a linear medium like video. I cringe when I hear journalism educators recommending techniques (story arc, sequencing etc) derived from film-making for use in online video.

To be sure the techniques still work fine and unfortunately they will win awards – but building to a carefully-crafted climax has limited value when 95% of the audience is likely to click out in the first few minutes.