This article is for those people who would like to make money by writing articles for newspapers. In here, I’ll offer you with easy to follow step-by-step guide so you will not get lost along the way. Here’s how you can get started:
First thing to do is to find the best stories to write for the day. Depending on your assigned lead, you can talk about police reports, latest news about the economy, politics, and government, or you can write articles about sports and entertainment. Whatever is your assigned lead, ensure that you choose those stories that are very recent and newsworthy. Your target audience will most likely to pay attention to your news articles if you touch on something that is extremely interesting or even controversial.
Research. Next step is to research your chosen stories thoroughly. Unlike when writing web articles, you will need to gather information by doing interviews. Talk to the person/s who are directly involved in your stories and other individuals who might have important facts to offer. Ensure that you gather as much information as possible so you can effectively educate your readers. Then, verify all the information that you’ve gathered and ensure that they are based on facts.
Plan ahead. Don’t get too excited to start writing your news articles. To make the whole thing more organized, I suggest that you create an outline first. Doing this is pretty easy. Just list down the information that you have gathered and arrange them in a logical manner. You would want to present the most important information in the beginning and the supporting details after the first or lead paragraph.
Use interesting headlines. Now that you know all the important information about your story, the next step is to target the most interesting angles. Choose headlines that will capture the attention of your target readers. Ensure that these headlines will give people a clear idea about the content of your articles. Use as few words as possible so you can easily help your editor save some space.
Write your lead paragraph. Your first or lead paragraph is the most important part of your news article. This must contain all the important information that your readers need to know in order to understand your story. Anticipate all the who, what, where, how, and when questions of your readers and answer them on this part.
Offer supporting details. Use your succeeding paragraphs to offer your readers with supporting details and quotes from people who are involved in your chosen story. Ensure that all the data you present are closely relevant to your stories so you can easily promote better comprehension among your readers.
Proofread your news articles. Make time to proofread your articles before you submit them to your editor. Read them out loud and if possible, ask somebody to help you out. It’s important for you to make sure that they’re ready for publishing.