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The Basic Requirements of News Writing for Dafa Practitioners (Part 2)
By a Practitioner in the U.S. (Clearwisdom.net)
3. Language in News Writing
1. Accuracy of Diction
Accuracy of diction directly relates to the authenticity of a news story.
Therefore, we need to pay great attention to word choices. A reporter's
misunderstanding of words, an overly soft tone or an overly sharp tone will make
a news report lose its accuracy.
For instance, "say" is used very often in news reports. Actually, there are
many synonyms that can be used for this expression. However, these synonyms give
people slightly different feelings and meanings. For example, "point out"
carries a more determined and authoritative tone, where as "state", "express"
and "mention" carry a lighter tone. "Admit," "imply," "guarantee" and "assert"
give readers a different feeling about the person's tone and attitude. If a
person only "said" something, but the news report indicates that he or she
"emphasized" something, then readers will be easily influenced and therefore
misunderstand the person's actual tone and meaning.
2. Clear and Concise Diction
News readers are society's general public. Many people in today's society
read news reports in a hurry. When they come across long and difficult-to-read
news articles, they probably take a few glances and simply decide not to read
it. In terms of this, when writing a news article, we should write short,
concise and straightforward sentences. In addition, organization of sentences
and organization of paragraphs should be clear and simple. People will
immediately understand it when they read it and don't need to read it over and
over again. Some people read news articles to relax and amuse themselves. If we
"test their grammar and syntax," they might lose the opportunity to understand
the truth.
Of course, in order to write a news article with concise and clear sentences,
the first requirement is that the author has to demonstrate clear thinking and
understand the story he or she is working on and what kind of message he or she
is conveying. In doing so, he or she will be able to use appropriate words and
get right to the point.
Take the article entitled "Falun Gong Practitioners from Around the World
Hold Large-Scale Appeal Activities in Geneva," (http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/3/19/33500.html)
which was published in March of 2003, as an example. This article talks about
how practitioners from around the world converged in Geneva for the fourth time
to oppose the persecution and held large-scale peaceful appeal activities during
the UN Commission on Human Rights' annual meeting. The first paragraph of the
article was written in the following way:
"The 59th United Nations Commission on Human Rights began its
annual meeting on March 17, 2003 in Geneva. In order to bring the attention of
the UN to the Jiang regime's brutal persecution of Falun Gong, practitioners
from around the world convened in Geneva, Switzerland as they have in previous
years on the first day of the human rights convention. Practitioners want to
appeal to the people of the world, in the hope that they can work together with
Falun Gong practitioners to stop the Jiang regime from persecuting innocent
Falun Gong practitioners. Over a thousand Falun Gong practitioners from more
than 40 countries held a grand and solemn parade on March 17 in Geneva."
As an opening statement, this paragraph carries a very strong message, which
is good. But the description is neither concise nor brief. Moreover, there are
shallow and redundant superficial words ("as they have in previous years,"
"grand and solemn" and "convened in Geneva"). It did not use the facts or the
main characters' words in the report to express the focal point. Therefore, the
readability of the report was diminished.
If we modify it on top of the original structure, for example, if we modify
it to:
"As the United Nations Commission on Human Rights began its meeting on March
17, 2003 in Geneva, over one thousand Falun Gong practitioners representatives
from forty-plus countries held a parade and press conference. The spokesperson
of the Swiss Falun Dafa Association said: 'The persecution has made tens of
thousands of people become victims and hundreds of thousands of families
suffer.' This is the fourth time since 1999 that Falun Gong practitioners from
around the world have come to Geneva and asked China to stop the persecution."
This makes it more subjective and neutral. Readers will find it easier to
read. Besides, people who resent the Chinese government's bureaucratic, official
tone will not be struck by conflicting thoughts before reading the report about
the facts and therefore lose an opportunity to understand the situation. If
fellow practitioners are interested in this, you can practice this on your own
and rewrite this article using the facts and information provided in this
article. There may be better ways to write this article. With different angles
and standpoints, the writing may be different.
3. Reduce the Usage of Adjectives that Express the Author's Subjective
Judgment and Emotional Touch
Using many adjectives, unconfirmed numbers and repeated exclamation points to
exaggerate the facts is a reflection of an author's emotional touch and values
of judgment. It not only makes the report unauthentic, sometimes it can also
have an entirely opposite effect. Most people think that they have independent
thinking and judgment and don't like to be preached at or indoctrinated.
Therefore, when they feel that an author has added a lot of subjective elements
and emotional touch to an article without presenting sufficient facts and
objective messages, they will be reluctant to read the article. We must pay
attention to this way of thinking.
The verb "to participate" has many synonyms. We can use "is present," "is at the
scene" or "visit," but each has a different strong or light flavor, with some
being more casual while others are more serious. If it is a parade with five
hundred participants, we should not subjectively approximate it to "almost a
thousand" simply because we strongly support the event.
4. Number, Verbs and Number of Words
An accurate number can often draw readers' attention, and if used properly,
it is a great help when you explain something. But we have to be careful to
indicate the background when we deal with numbers, in order to give meaning to
the numbers. For instance, when we talk about the number of Falun Gong
practitioners that have died because of the persecution, if we don't mention the
time period involved, people who still don't understand the truth will not be
able understand the cruelty of the persecution or the urgency of the rescue
efforts.
News reports cannot use a literary style to impress readers. Therefore, verbs
become a good tool to make the report more vivid, visualized and
non-stereotyped.
Conciseness of description has a lot to do with the number of words. Don't
use ten words if you can explain something with five words. Otherwise, you do
not increase the quantity of your message, you only get an extra nuisance and a
touch of un-professionalism. Of course, we reduce the number of words with the express purpose of explaining things clearly. If we fail to explain things
clearly because we want to reduce the number of words, it is like putting the cart
before the horse.
For example, in the title "Additional Information on the Torture Death of
Dafa Practitioner Mr. Li Jianhao at the Deyang Prison in Sichuan Province" (The
Chinese version can be found on
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/8/30/56531.html and the English one
from
http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/9/17/40382.html), since this is
additional information, there must be past articles reporting on this. Then, "Dafa
practitioner" and "Deyang Prison in Sichuan Province" (at least the word
"Sichuan") must have been clearly indicated in the previous article. Simplifying
the sentence and reducing the number of words into "More Information on the
Torture Death of Mr. Li Jianhao at the Deyang Prison" can state the same thing.
5. Pay Attention to Consistency of Word Choices and Be Considerate to the
Reader
News reports mainly target the general public, namely, people
who are not practitioners. Therefore the words we choose to use should be
words that are not against Dafa principles but are also easy for the public to understand and accept. For example, Dafa practitioners often use "fellow
practitioners," "disciples" or "practitioners" to refer to each other, the
meaning of which we all understand. Nevertheless, to the public, these references are not only strange and distant, but also
difficult to understand. It's best that we
use friendly words that are easy to understand, namely, "Falun Gong
practitioners" or "Falun Dafa practitioners," and so on.
Consistency of word choice is also important. When referring to the
same thing in the same article, if it has the same meaning, we should use the
same description. The same is true for numbers. Otherwise, an article might look
messy and unorganized.
Some words are special terms which are probably familiar to Dafa
practitioners. These words are collections of important information. Some
practitioners probably think that the persecution has been going on for four
years and so has our truth-clarification efforts, so people should have had a
considerable understanding of the truth by now. Sometimes, they write news
report as if they are writing for practitioners who already understand the
truth. Actually, for the past four years a lot of truthful information has been
made widely known. However, our news articles are written mainly for people who
need to understand or further understand the truth, so we need to keep everyday
readers' characteristics in mind. We should add one or two sentences when
necessary or add some footnotes in order to explain the true situation, expose
the evil and eliminate doubt. In doing so, the whole article will achieve a
better effect.
Moreover, our articles are also presenting new viewpoints, new ways of
thinking and pure and righteous ideals. But we are facing complicated reading
groups. For example, some readers may be reading one of our articles for the first time, while some
may have been following our articles for some time. Some may support us, while some others may
misunderstand us. Some observe and study our direction and developments, some
have doubts, some have ulterior motives and want to quote us out of context.
Some spies are collecting information for further persecution, and so on.
Consequently, we should choose words that are capable of explaining profound
concepts in simple everyday language. For instance, we should consider
atheist readers' special mental barriers and not use the expressions that are
easily misunderstood by them. Otherwise, the evil will easily take
advantage of this loophole.
Dafa's inner meaning and cultivation principles are by no means something
non-practitioners can understand after reading a few articles. Therefore we
should not be anxious to get results. Instead, we should pay attention to using
the language that is easiest for readers to understand. We should base it on the
angle of being considerate to them and explain only the Fa principles they need to
understand and recognize. If
we talk a little higher or keep using special terminology without considering that some in our audience may not understand the true situation and can easily be
affected by emotion and notions, we may in turn push them away. If a person
only gets one chance to read about us, isn't this a chance of utmost importance
for his future? Consequently, we must consider our readers' situations,
truly think about their future and be responsible to them. |