Hard News

Here are some reminders:

Lead = 5 W’s and 1 H – as many as you can

Nut Graf = your second paragraph that continues with the basic information and gets the rest of the 5 W’s and 1 H that missed in the lead

Then you have options: you can either go directly into a quote OR you can make another statement.

From there you need to follow the same format over and over:

Statement

Quote

Statement

Quote

Statement

Quote

Remember:

Statements are factual, non-opinionated sentences.

Quotes are direct quotes that relate to the statement above them

Here is the form of quotes:

“We selected Melissa student of the month because she has a really high GPA and she is very active in club campuses,” Principal Stephen Kane said.

Here is story #1, please make a new blog post called Huntington story:

Directions – write a 200-250 word brief using inverted pyramid and in statement-quote structure.

Janice Jones is 53 years old and lives in Barstow, California, according to California Highway Patrol press liaison Tammy Rye.

Rye said Jones was eating pork chops in the back of her motor home, which was parked on Beach Boulevard near Highway 1, when her dog knocked her 9 mm handgun off a seat. The weapon discharged when it hit the floor, and the bullet passed through Jones; leg and through the side of the vehicle, according to Rye. “It could have been worse,” Rye said. “The bullet hit two inches from the gas tank.”

Jones was shot in the right leg around 10 p.m. Wednesday, Rye said.

Jones was transported to Huntington Beach Hospital via ambulance and later was transported to Irvine Medical Center, Rye said. Jim Washington, a spokesperson for Huntington Beach Hospital, confirmed Jones was treated at the hospital but gave no additional information.

Jones’ dog, a Pomeranian named Tombo, was placed in the care of the Huntington Beach Animal Control officers.

The dog seemed to be malnourished, according to Janet Ngo, one of the animal control officers, and had fresh cigarette burns on its forehead. “It could have done with a little less abuse and a few more of those pork chops,” Ngo said.

Ngo indicated that her office would explore filing animal abuse charges against Jones.

Rye said officers cited Jones for expired plates and the county’s district attorney’s office was considering whether to charge her in relation to the gun accident. Jones doesn’t have a permit for the gun, Rye said.

Story #2, please make a new blog post called Earthquake story

Directions - Write a 300-word, inverted-pyramid story based on the following set of facts. Assume that the story is for a newspaper the following day.

An earthquake rocked the San Francisco Bay area Monday morning. The quake struck at 8:12 a.m. PDT

A building housing McHenry’s Auto Supply at 2342 Plum St. partially collapsed, killing two people and injuring six others, according to  Jennifer Vu, a public information officer from the Hayward Fire Department. Names of the dead are being withheld pending notifications of families, Vu said.

Hayward resident Mike Beamer, whose apartment is across the street from McHenry’s, said he felt a rolling motion that lasted for about 30 seconds, with a big jolt coming in the middle. “I was eating my breakfast when the room started rolling. I dove under the table just as I heard an explosion outside and a chunk of cement flew through my kitchen window. That’s when the screaming start across the street.”

Hayward firefighters used ropes to stabilize the auto supply shop, conducting a search of the building and capped a gas line after detecting a gas leak at the site.

The epicenter of the earthquake, which had a magnitude of 6.4 on the Richter scale, was under the Hayward Hills, according to Penny Gertz, a scientist from the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park. Gertz called the quake a “strong one” and said it occurred on the Hayward Fault, which runs under the hills.

Twenty-one fire personnel, 12 police and five American Red Cross workers responded to the building collapse, with some arriving within four minutes of the quake, Vu said.

Three of the six people injured were hurt seriously enough to require hospitalization and were transported to Hayward General Hospital, according to Vu. She added the no other serious injuries have been reported in Hayward.

People as far south as Los Angeles and as far north as Redding felt the quake, Gertz said.