Lesson 03-04

Understanding the News

In the handbook read through the brief points on news and the job of the journalist. Examine and discuss the Do’s and Don’ts of writing a news story. Look at the structure of a news story and the 5Ws. After these have been read, either silently and independently, or with the group as a whole each student should take a newspaper/access an Irish news-website and do the following:

Analysing the News Tutorial:

Write down the name of their news media outlet and date published.
Identify a news story
Write down the headline/ sub head and byline.
Summarise the story down into the 5Ws using bullet points.

Here are some links to different news stories which may assist:

Options for discussion/ analysis:

In pairs they could analyse which of their headlines was the most factual or sensationalised.
They could compare the way in which the 5Ws were used i.e. in which order did they come?
They could establish what extra information was given or who was quoted.
Finally they could decide which of the two stories they thought was more interesting or better written saying why they made that choice.
Each pair could feed back to the class.

10-20 mins (depending on length of discussion)

Pages 06-07