news story

In my News Writing course, I wrote a piece on the appointment of Wake Forest University’s new president from the perspective of a WFU student reporter. In this scenario, I was a student reporter writing this piece for the student newspaper on a deadline—the announcement had just been made, and it was my responsibility to share the news with the student body. Note: This was purely for course assignment purposes but is available to view here as a PDF news article.

I completed several hours of online research, gathering information about the announcement from the Wake Forest website and other sources. I also thought about my audience—WFU students—and the sort of style and topics they would be interested in. After considering the information I found, I selected several key topics article to be the most newsworthy and exciting and made these my focal points for the article.

I then sat down and wrote the piece, cutting, editing, and wordsmithing until I was happy with my work. I verified that my writing and grammar adhered to Associated Press Stylebook conventions before submitting my 500-word piece to my editor (in this case, my journalism professor) before the deadline.

My story was successful because I followed the best practices and process on creating a news story: I did my research, I started with the key facts, I added quotes and details, I came back and wrote an engaging lead, and I edited my piece.

My professor Jeffrey Bunch was pleased with my work and gave me the following feedback on my story: “You nailed this in a way no one else [in the class] did. I had to give you bonus points. Change. History. First female president! Great writing, construction, voice!”