Most of the stories I write for The Daily Herald are between 400 and 700 words.
In general, editors encourage daily newspaper writers to keep stories “tight,” which means they want us to convey the essential aspects of a story in as few words as possible — always a sound idea. This approach became even more important when we significantly reduced the width of our paper in February. In theory, a smaller paper meant we needed slightly shorter stories.
Every once in awhile the rules change and I get to dig deeper into a particularly intriguing or complicated topic. It could be a feature about a remarkable athlete or a memorial about a beloved community figure.
Most recently, I got to look at how schools are dealing with budget cuts and increasing costs, and the resulting impact on high school sports. If that’s something you’re interested in knowing about, read the “Paying more to play” story that we published today.
As is always the case with this sort of article, I had to leave out a lot of interesting details. Even without that extra stuff, the story wound up being 1,253 words.
Just for fun, I tallied the words in my interview notes, which I typed into a Microsoft Word file. The total word count was 6,682.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with high school budgets and sports funding after the 2009-10 school year. Most local school districts have already made substantial sub-varsity cuts and either added or increased participation fees.
But what happens if the economic woes continue? Will varsity some sports get axed? Will athletes’ parents be asked to pay even more?
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
