Julie Lavender

Share good news and the Good News with newspaper writing

By Julie Lavender

(This post originally appeared on Edie Melson's blog, The Write Conversation. I'm giving you a portion of it here, to hopefully entice you to click here to read the article in its entirety. I hope you'll join Edie and me there, on my walk with God as a journalist, and learn more about newspaper writing.) 

To report the condition of our country and world in recent days, most of our newspapers scream dire and depressing headlines. And though we need that important information disseminated, good news stories and inspirational features can add a balance to otherwise difficult news to swallow. 

Now’s a great time for writers to contribute encouraging articles and faith-based stories to local newspaper. The slim staff of most newspaper entities keeps busy reporting “just the facts,” and stringers can add that leverage of boots-on-the-ground, local , feel-good stories to the content. 

Reach out to the newspaper editor and ask if you can send him or her a story for consideration. Then, write that story about something in your community that you’ve always thought should be broadcast in the newspaper or a current event that’s taking place right now in your community circle of friends or family members.  

Conduct an interview via phone call, write the article, and get it to the editor in a timely manner. Be sure to ask the person you’re interviewing if he/she can send you a picture to go along with the story, as you probably won’t be able to take a picture in person at this point with travel and shelter-in-place restrictions.

To refresh your memory, here’s some reminders about newspaper writing.

Generally speaking, the two main types of stories that you might be writing for your newspaper are: 

• 1) news article 
• 2) feature article.  

A news article covers the who, what, when, where, and how of a current event. You might choose to write a news article that covers five local churches’ efforts to get their services broadcast online and how a church without that capability is meeting the spiritual needs of their congregation. 

A feature article is typically longer and goes into more depth than just the details of a current event, news article. The feature might be covered from several angles and is written with more creativity and an entertaining bent. That doesn’t eliminate the creativity of a news article, however. But generally speaking, feature articles allow for more creativity. 

(To continue reading the article, please click here.)