Extra, Extra, Write All About It!

In this activity, you will:

• analyze a photograph by looking closely at it
• be able to describe the elements of a news story
• write a news story to accompany the photograph

• Multiple Parts

Weegee (real name Arthur Fellig) was a New York City photojournalist famous for showing up at crime scenes before the police did. A photograph he took in 1941, The First Murder, shows a crowd of people reacting to something just out of frame. You don’t see what they’re reacting to; you only see their faces.

Your job: write the news story that goes with this image in the style of a real journalist’s story—based on what you can actually observe.

Look Before You Write

Good reporters don’t rush. Before you write a single word, you need to really look at the scene in this photograph. Most people glance at an image for a few seconds. Journalists spend much more time. Use the two steps below to study the image before you report on it.

Just Describe (Don’t Interpret Yet)

Write down everything you literally see. Pretend you’re describing the photo to someone who can’t see it. Don’t say what you think is happening—just say what’s there. Think about: How many people? What are they wearing? What expressions do you see? What’s in the background? Where are they standing?

Now Interpret

Now you can say what you think is going on. What’s your best explanation for the scene? What happened? What are people reacting to?

The 5 W’s (and H)

Every news story answers six basic questions: Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why?, How? Consider each of these questions as you look at The First Murder:

• Who is in the scene?
• What happened?
• When did this take place? (Look for clues in clothing, setting, light.)
• Where is this happening?
• Why are all these people gathered here?
• How does the crowd seem to feel? What’s the emotional temperature?

Observe the photograph and jot down answers for as many of these questions as you can. For any that you cannot answer based on the image, write “unknown.”

What the Photo Doesn’t Tell You

Here’s something reporters have to think about constantly: What information am I missing? Weegee chose not to photograph the murdered body. He chose to photograph the crowd. What questions can’t this image answer?

How News Stories Are Built

News articles aren’t written like essays or short stories. They follow a specific structure called the “inverted pyramid”—think of it as an upside-down triangle. The idea is simple: put the most important information first. An editor who needs to edit your article for space will cut from the bottom. If your best stuff is at the end, it will be cut.

Here are the three parts of a news article:

• Lede (the first sentence or paragraph): Include Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Get to the point immediately. This part is meant to hook your reader and give them the most important information.
• Body (important details): Witness quotes, context, what happened next, background information.
• Tail (nice to have information): Extra background and the least important info. This section can be cut if an editor doesn’t have space on the page.

How to Write a Strong Lede

Your lede (reporters spell it that way on purpose, to avoid confusing it with the metal “lead”) is the most important sentence you’ll write. It needs to immediately tell the reader what happened and make them want to keep reading.

Rules for a strong lede:

• Don’t start with “On Tuesday…” or “At approximately…” Those are boring. Start with the most gripping detail.
• Keep it to 1–2 sentences. If your lede is longer than 35 words, shorten it.
• Test it. If someone only reads these one or two sentences, do they understand what happened?

Here’s a weak lede: “On the evening of October 9th, 1941, at approximately 8:00 pm on a street in Brooklyn, a murder occurred.”

Here’s a stronger version: “A crowd of children pressed together on a Brooklyn sidewalk Tuesday night, their faces frozen between fascination and horror, as a man lay dead just feet away.”

Notice the difference? The stronger lede puts you in the scene. It shows you something. It makes you ask: What happened next?

Distinguish Between What You Know vs. What You’re Guessing

This is one of the most important distinctions in journalism and one of the most important distinctions in clear thinking. Good journalists will distinguish between observation (what you can see) and inference (what you’re concluding). Observations are things you can point to directly in the image. Inferences are conclusions you’re drawing—they might be reasonable, but you’re not 100% certain.

For example, these two sentences are observations:

• “A girl in the center of the frame is crying.”
• “There are approximately twelve people in the crowd.”

And these two sentences are inferences:

• “She knew the victim.”
• “They had all gathered quickly, suggesting the shooting was loud.”

In a news story, you can use inferences, but you need to make it clear when something is an inference by saying “it appeared that…” or “witnesses seemed to…” instead of stating them as facts. When a reporter has an inference, they would follow up with interviews and investigation to confirm. You’re working from a single photograph, so be honest about the limits of what you know.

Write the News Story

Imagine, you are a reporter for a 1941 New York City newspaper. You’ve just arrived at the scene shown in Weegee’s photograph. Write the news story.

Requirements:

• Length: 300–400 words
• Structure: Follow the inverted pyramid. Your lede should be 1–2 sentences that get right to the point.
• 5 W’s (and H): All six questions (Who, What, When, Where, Why, How) must be addressed somewhere in the article.
• At least one witness quote: You may invent a quote that is consistent with what you see in the photograph—but make it feel real and specific, not generic.