Writing News Articles

[chrish]

Interested in writing a news article? It seems easy. Just pick one or
more of these standard sentences and add some words around it.

According to authorities, as many as [inflated number] may have been
[killed, injured, eaten] in the [accident, attack, catastrophe, soccer match].

The [director, chairman, spokesman, spokesperson, janitor] of the
[government agency] acknowledged the widespread [mistakes, spying,
corruption, incompetence, parties] and said, "We are substantially
understaffed and under funded. We just don't have the money or the
people to handle this problem."

[Politician about to be embarrassed] said, "We have no evidence that
[something really embarrassing] in fact occurred. We are conducting a
full investigation into the matter." A full report is expected in 17 years.

The [senator or other politician] from [some state] said that this is
no time for partisan politics and that the situation demands prompt
federal action.

[Anybody] said, "We have got to have federal help in this time of crisis."

When you write a news article, you should use the word "crisis" a lot.
A search was just done in the LA Times Web site. "Crisis" was there 467 times. It has become even more popular than "alleged,"
which appeared only 357 times.

"As many as" is also a popular phrase, appearing 134 times in the past
30 days in the New York Times.

[Haul Asp]

"The region" is used quite a bit too. Cities and states are now referred to as regions.