Analysis

First we go through the story picking out the key points. For the purposes of this exercise, we shall limit ourselves to six or seven of the most important ones.
Remember our four criteria and test each of the facts against them.

For example, how new, unusual or significant is it that meteorologists in Nadi detected the cyclone? After all, this is one of their jobs. Also it happened at 2 a.m. yesterday, many hours ago. More significant and certainly more up-to-date is the fact that they warned the Solomon Islands government. Maybe that is not too unusual in the event of a cyclone, but certainly an unusual occurrence in the day-to-day communication between the two nations. We will make that a key point:

a) Nadi meteorologists warn Solomon Islands government of approach of Cyclone Victor.

Now let us look for our next key point. Key point (a) is about meteorologists and government officials. We have to read on a bit further to find facts about the Solomon Islanders themselves, the people most affected by the cyclone. They were first alerted to the cyclone by radio broadcasts and police officers. They would have found this unusual and highly significant. Let us make this our next key point:

b) Solomon Islanders themselves warned of approaching cyclone.

Next we have mostly weather details. These should be reported in our story, but they do not themselves tell us much about the effect the cyclone is going to have on people's lives. Those people live in Honiara and we learn that 20 of their homes have been destroyed. This is quite new, unusual, significant and about people - another key point:

c) More than 20 houses destroyed and other buildings sustained considerable structural damage.

Key point (c) tells us about "houses", now we learn the fate of the people in them. More than 100 people now have nowhere to live. That is unusual and very significant for both the people themselves and for the government. It is also as up-to-date as we can get:

d) More than 100 people homeless.

The next sentence gives us the real tragedy of the story - six people have been killed. This fact fills all the criteria for news. It is new, it is unusual for a number of people to die so suddenly in such circumstances and it is significant for their families, friends and the authorities. Most important, it is about people:

e) Six people killed.

We could leave it there, because mopping up after a cyclone is not unusual and it appears that Honiara was the worst hit. There are, however, 18 people who will bear some scars from the cyclone, so let's make them a key points:

f) Eighteen people treated for minor injuries.

Right at the end of the information we find out how the six people died. Our readers or listeners will be interested in this, so we will make it our final key point:

g) Three drowned and three killed by flying debris.

Notice that we have left out a number of details which our reader or listener might like to know. We can come back to them in the main body of the story. In the Chapters 6 and 7 we will show you how.

For now, we have seven key points. We cannot possibly get them all in an intro so we must choose one, possibly two, which are the best combination of our news criteria.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 602