The Basics of AP Style To start off, what’s a lede? A lede is, from Merriam Webster, “the introductory section of a news story that is intended to entice the reader to the full story.” A good lede, for the types of stories you guys will mostly be writing, should essentially summarize your story, including who, what, where, when, why, and how. Good lede: This evening at about 9:30 p.m. at Ford's Theatre, the President, while sitting in his private box with Mrs. Lincoln, Mrs. Harris and Major Rathburn, was shot by an assassin, who suddenly entered the box and approached behind the President. Not enough info: Last night the President was shot. Just no: Someone shot the president last night. There are different types of ledes for different stories, and if, during the latter half of the conference, you guys want to experiment with writing features, profiles, or what have you, we’ll talk individually about how to frame stories. Inverted pyramid – following the “5 W’s, 1 H” lead, hard-­‐news stories include all the important information at the beginning before funneling down to the least important information at the end. Here are three versions of the inverted pyramid, all saying the same thing, more or less: Or, most basically: Datelines – start all stories with datelines; whether you want that to be Evanston (EVANSTON, ILL.) or the location in which a committee would actually take place, is up to you. Just make sure to follow AP Style. The following cities stand alone, meaning they don’t require a state or country abbreviation: Domestic Atlanta Baltimore Boston Chicago Cincinnati Cleveland Dallas Denver Detroit Honolulu Houston Indianapolis Las Vegas Los Angeles Miami Milwaukee Minneapolis New Orleans New York Oklahoma City Philadelphia Phoenix Pittsburgh St. Louis Salt Lake City San Antonio San Diego San Francisco Seattle Washington International Amsterdam Baghdad Bangkok Beijing Beirut Berlin Brussels Cairo Djibouti Dublin Geneva Gibraltar Guatemala City Havana Helsinki Hong Kong Islamabad Istanbul Jerusalem Johannesburg Kuwait City London Luxembourg Macau Madrid Mexico City Milan Monaco Montreal Moscow Munich New Delhi Panama City Paris Prague Quebec City Rio de Janeiro Rome San Marino Sao Paulo Shanghai Singapore Stockholm Sydney Tokyo Vatican City Vienna Zurich If you’re reporting on something happening in none of these places, ask us what the style for country codes are, or Google it! Oxford Commas – don’t use them. Example of Oxford Comma: Forrest, Chelsea, and the Press Corps are writing awesome stories about world events this weekend. Non-­‐Oxford Comma: Forrest, Chelsea and the Press Corps are writing awesome stories about world events this weekend. It’s pretty annoying and difficult to get used to (try switching between journalistic and academic writing on a daily basis) but it’s just how the AP rolls. One more thing If something sounds official, you should probably capitalize it. I.e. – The Iranian Parliament passed a resolution about human rights legislation. The Iranian Parliament submit Draft Resolution 1.1 about human rights legislation. And that’s the gist of it. If you guys have more complex questions (you probably will) feel free to ask us; we have an AP style book on file, and part of (most of) our job is to help you navigate its ins and outs.