Elements of Good News

Good Reporter should have following elements in his news story:

Accuracy

Every statement, quotation, name, date, age and address must be verifiable. In addition, accuracy of general impression is also important. This involves the way the details are put together and the emphasis given those details. A reporter must judge what is important or unimportant, what will be played up or played down. The overall article must give an accurate portrayal of an event or situation, and poor selection of details or improper emphasis of details can distort the truth. In general, accuracy is difficult because reporters are dealing with many facts; they must gather information and write quickly, and many people are involved, from source to reporter to editor. To ensure accuracy, check and double check every detail and question sources carefully. You can't always rely on sources to give complete, accurate information any more than you can rely on them to just "tell" everything needed for an article. Indeed, some sources may intentionally misinform, so reporters often need to check with more than one source.

Balance

Balance, closely related to accuracy, is the selection of significant details as a result of informed judgment on the part of the reporter. Balance involves giving facts proper emphasis and placing them in proper relation to other facts. A balanced story is also a complete story, where the reporter presents both sides of an issue, particularly if it is controversial. For example, if you write a sports story for your high school paper, every statement could be correct, but if only the action of the home team is reported, the reporter is guilty of writing an incomplete and unbalanced story. If you are covering a convention and write about a minor speech in great detail while giving little detail about a major speech, you produce an unbalanced article.

Objectivity

 News is a factual report of an event, not a report as seen by a biased person, or seen as a reporter might wish it to be seen. The reporter should be as impartial and honest as possible. In fact, if a reporter does have a bias, sometimes he or she declines to do the story, or, more often, bends over backwards to make sure both sides are covered equally. Is total objectivity humanly possible? We all have backgrounds, biases, and emotions that help make up who we are as people, and turning them off completely is pretty impossible. Sometimes biased reporting can happen inadvertently because the reporter tries to be clever or make a story more interesting.

Concise & Clear

The inverted pyramid structure of writing, with the most important information first, beginning with the lead paragraph that tells the whole story in miniature, helps the reporter to present information in an easy-to-understand manner. Think in terms of writing simply so that the average reader can understand, even if they have no background or previous knowledge of the subject. Whenever you begin to write an article, think of this story, and remember that you must explain in such a way that not one member of your audience would misunderstand. You must somehow make readers "see," regardless of their frame of reference or how complex the topic is.
Source: Internet