A newsline is a timeline that is made up of multiple news events. Readers can scan the newsline to get an overview about the news about a person, product or news event.
Newslines = News Timelines
Authors who are used to writing traditional newspaper articles need to adjust their writing style when writing newsline posts. This is because newspaper stories try to give as much background information as possible to give the reader some context. For example, a newspaper article about Arnold Schwarzenegger will probably mention that the original Terminator movies were made in the 80s, that he was a bodybuilder, was the Governor of California, and that he was married to Maria Shriver.
However when we write a newsline, each of the news events about his life is in a separate post.
- Born in Austria
- Starts bodybuilding
- Moves to USA
- Terminator
- Terminator 2
- Schwarzenegger, Shriver divorce
- Becomes Governor
- Leaves Governorship
- Schwarzenegger, Shriver divorce
- Terminator 25
Because each post is separate, we don’t need to repeat information that already happened.
WRONG
- Schwarzenegger, the bodybuilder, gets married to Shriver
- Austrian-born Schwarzenegger, the bodybuilder, gets married to Shriver
- Schwarzenegger, the former Governor of California, gets married to Shriver
RIGHT
- Schwarzenegger gets married to Shriver
This means that the reader can read down the newsline without seeing tiring repetition.
- Schwarzenegger is born in Austria
- Schwarzenegger, born in Austria, starts bodybuilding
- Austrian-born Schwarzenegger come to the US
- Schwarzenegger, who was born in Austria, stars in The Terminator
- …and so on.
So don’t repeat background information in your posts unless it’s absolutely necessary. Scan through the source article and extract only the information that is happening in this current event. If the post is about a movie release only write about that and avoid the temptation to add extra background. If you want to add the background info to newslines just create a separate post.
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