The last 100 pages of Tim Harrower’s Inside Reporting textbook are “The Morgue,” an anthology of news and feature stories illustrating topics discussed throughout the textbook.
Contributing authors range from Mark Twain “covering” a murder scene in 1863 (a hoax, it turns out) to a St. Petersburg Times reporter covering a strange case of attack-by-rooster, and David Simon (creator of TV’s “Homicide: Life on the Street” and “The Wire”) criticizing present-day police reporting. Some are news stories, some are editorials or opinion columns.
As a “news reading” assignment, I’ve asked students to pick three news or feature stories from the collection and add summaries of those stories to their blogs. (Skip the editorials and personal opinion pieces, such as H.L. Mencken’s essay on The Constitution or Simon on Baltimore police coverage. The selections between pages 220 and 281 will be a better match for this assignment, although you may try others if you want.)
For each of the three stories, include:
- The headline
- The original publication and date, followed by the book and page
- The original first paragraph of the story, in quotes.
- A summary sentence in your own words. (The first paragraph is not always a summary.)
- A short paragraph saying what “newsworthiness” values apply to the story, and why.
For example:
Until a Child
Happened to Pass
“It was five o’clock in the afternoon, that was part of the reason. The elegant lady in the fur cape, the four businessmen and the two young housewives stood at the Tryon St. bus stop with the vacant look of people thinking about their own affairs, tired of working, tired of shopping and eager to get home.”
Summary: Busy shoppers ignored an old man selling pencils on the street until a small girl took notice and inspired others to help.
News value: This feature column by Charles Kuralt is pure “human interest.” It’s a small human drama, carefully observed and described, and appealing to the reader’s emotions. Some might even cry at the end. (Notice how much better Kuralt’s scene-setting descriptive lead works than a bare summary for this kind of read-to-the-end feature.)
News Reports for COMS 104 at Radford University 