How to write a news story: a practical guide with examples

A news story, or hard news story, reports a recent, verifiable event of public interest, directly and without opinion. It isn't a feature, which tells a story with scenes and voice; an investigation, which digs deep over weeks; or a column, which argues a point. Its commitment is to the facts: what happened, who it affects and how we know.

What makes something news? The classic tests: timeliness (it just happened or just came out), proximity (it touches your readers), impact (how many people it affects), prominence of the people involved, novelty and consequence. If it passes none of them, it may not be a story.

It's the classic structure of a news story: the most important information at the top, and everything else in descending order of importance. Its big advantage is practical: if the story has to be cut, it's cut from the bottom without losing the news. Today it has another: many readers only read the top, and search engines and AI assistants look there first too.

• Top, the lede: the main event with its 5 Ws.
• Middle, the body: details, figures, quotes and reactions, from most to least important.
• Bottom, context and what's next: background, secondary details and next steps.

The 5 Ws are the questions every news story must answer. Add how, and you get the 5 Ws and H:

• What happened: the event, with a clear verb.
• Who: the people involved, with full names and titles.
• When: the date, and the time if it matters.
• Where: the exact place.
• Why: the cause or motive; if it isn't known, say so.
• How: the way it happened.

The lede is the first paragraph, and it's where most readers decide whether to keep going. Four rules:

1. 1

   Start with the most newsworthy element

   Usually the what or the who. Rarely the date, the place or the procedure.

2. 2

   One idea, 30 to 40 words

   If you need two sentences, you probably have two ideas, and the second belongs in the next paragraph.

3. 3

   An active, concrete verb

   “Approved,” “closed,” “raised” — not “a vote was held on the approval of.”

4. 4

   No throat-clearing

   No rhetorical questions and no sentence that could open any story.

1. 1

   Headline

   The main event in a few words, with a verb. It's the most-read part of the story: on your homepage, on social media and in search.

2. 2

   Dek (optional)

   One line under the headline that adds the second most important fact.

3. 3

   Lede

   The first paragraph, with the Ws that make it news.

4. 4

   Nut graf

   A paragraph, usually second or third, that tells readers why this matters to them.

5. 5

   Body

   Short paragraphs, one idea each, in order of importance: figures, quotes, reactions, context.

6. 6

   Ending

   What happens next: dates, deadlines, next steps. Not a conclusion or a moral.

How long should it be? That depends on the outlet and the event. A brief can do the job in 250 to 400 words; a full story in 500 to 800. The rule that doesn't change: every paragraph has to add something new.

• Attribute everything you didn't witness or verify yourself: “according to the health department report,” “police said.”
• Full name and title on first reference; last name after that.
• Quotation marks only for exact words that say something with force or personality. Facts are paraphrased.
• “Said” is almost always the best verb. “Claimed,” “admitted” or “confessed” carry a judgment; use them only when they're accurate.
• Don't change a quote's meaning when you trim it, and don't take it out of context.
• Anonymous sources only as an exception: explain why the person isn't named and how they know what they say.

• Short sentences, subject-verb-object.
• Active voice: “police arrested,” not “was arrested by police.”
• Third person and past tense for what happened.
• Exact figures with units and sources; if you round, say so (“nearly,” “about”).
• Acronyms spelled out on first reference.
• No editorializing adjectives: “controversial,” “historic” or “tragic” are judgments. Let the facts do the work.

Here's a complete example with everything above applied. The city and the people are fictional.

• Burying the lede: opening with background, procedure or the date, and leaving the news for the third paragraph.
• Editorializing with adjectives or loaded attribution verbs.
• Facts without a source, or rounded figures presented as exact.
• Long quotes that repeat what you already said in your own words.
• Ten-line paragraphs: on a phone they look like a wall.
• Unexplained acronyms and jargon.
• A headline that promises what the story doesn't deliver.
• Ending with your own conclusion instead of what happens next.

AI genuinely helps with the mechanical parts, as long as it works from what you reported and not the other way around:

1. 1

   Transcribe with AI, quote from the audio

   Let a tool turn the interview into text, but check every quote against the recording before you put it in quotation marks.

2. 2

   You decide the lede

   What's news is an editorial call. AI can suggest lede and headline variants; you choose.

3. 3

   Give it only verified material

   Your notes, quotes, figures and documents, with the instruction to build an inverted pyramid using only those facts.

4. 4

   Check fact by fact

   Names, titles, figures and dates against the source. The Associated Press tells its staff to treat AI output as unvetted source material, and Google recommends reviewing all AI-generated content before publishing it.

5. 5

   Polish the voice, then sign it

   Rewrite anything generic and add the context only you know. Whoever signs it answers for it.

For the full workflow and the rules worth writing down, read our guide to AI for journalists; for which tool to use at each step, AI tools for journalists.