This week, the most resounding part of the reading was thinking about the inverted pyramid versus the alternatives that the book offered. I had not thought about some of these styles before, but I could see them proving to be useful depending on the type of story being written. For instance, after Apple's press conference and so many journalist will be putting stories out that are in chronological orders. They follow a format like "Tim Cook came out and did this, then show this, and segued into this," and so forth. This style would be appealing to the tech-junkie who wants to feel like they didn't miss a detail of the press conference.
If I were writing for in the long form—like a magazine article or online think-piece—I definitely think that using a nut graf could be effective. Since you may not have to worry about "getting to the point" immediately in the article, you could maybe focus on the storytelling element more and having a good lead. As someone who studied the creative writing component of English extensively in undergrad, I would be able to let some of those skills shine through, by captivating the readers attention with my storytelling skills. Then, I could insert a hard-hitting "so what?" with the nut graf.
Still, I am partial to the inverted pyramid of journalism—at least in the short form— because I understand that readers, myself included, tend to have shorter attention spans and will be more likely to ready my article if it grabs them from the first page.
I agree that for most "serious" news stories, such as breaking news, the inverted pyramid is potentially the most effective structure to use. I often find my mind wandering by the end of an article unless it gets to the most important information fairly early on. That same structure, however, is often ineffective for special interest features pieces. I think those stories sometimes require more storytelling-anything the reader can personally connect to-in order to really make an impact.
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