Introduction- The Characteristics of Good Writing
- The Inverted Pyramid
- Task
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Following successful completion of this lesson, students will be able to:
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Introduction
In this lesson, we are going to take on the roll of a newspaper reporter in Chicago. The city of Chicago has three major newspapers but one of them clearly stands out as the largest and most influential. The Chicago Tribune is the largest newspaper in town with the most reporters and writers at work in the city. The Chicago Tribune published its first edition on June 10, 1847. This newspaper has been well respected world-wide for many years.
The Chicago Tribune has been known for being the first newspaper to publish several breaking news stories. When a newspaper is the first to publish a breaking news story an action called a 'scoop'.
This newspaper is so zealous in publishing news first that it is also well known for a very famous misprint. In 1948, the Chicago Tribune tried to beat their competition to the press and printed a famously incorrect headline reporting their prediction of the presidential election results as a large headline.
Truman wins in 1948, despite contrary headline. 2005. Image.
26 July 2011. <http://www.discoveryeducation.com/>.
Have you ever seen this picture in a history book? In the picture, you see a very happy, newly elected President Harry S. Truman holding up a copy of the Chicago Tribune with the incorrect winner stated in the headline. You might wonder how they could have made such a public mistake. Well, consider this: the city of Chicago is located on the East Coast. In order to publish the election results, they had to put the paper to press before the voting polls along the west coast had even closed. The editors felt sure that Dewey would win the election and over-confidently sent the paper to press.
The editors of the Chicago Tribune learned on that day that newspapers should print the news, and not create the news.
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