Answers to writing the news lead exercise

Here are suggested answers for the news story writing exercise. These are not the only
way news stories could have been written from the information you were given, and
your stories may be correct even if they differ from ours in some details. Compare your
stories with the following suggested answers, to see if you can improve what you have
written.

Story 1

A new breeding project has bred the biggest pig ever. The adult male pig that weighs
350 kg was produced through a government breeding project in Papua New Guinea.

It is the result of a ten-year breeding project by the Department of Primary Industry.

Scientist Dr Michael Kai hopes to use the animal to breed other very large pigs.

Notice how, even though the information was about a pig, we have included people
by talking about the scientist who bred the big pig. Also, see how we have limited the
story to a maximum of two concepts (ideas) per sentence.

Story 2

More than 30 children escaped serious injury when a school bus crashed in Joo Chiat
today.

The 36-seater bus, which was carrying children to Bedok Primary School, ran off Still
Road.

It narrowly missed an electricity pole and came to rest with most of its windows
smashed in a garden.

Eye-witnesses said the children were helped from the bus screaming and shouting
and in a state of panic.

Although none of the children was seriously hurt, some of them were grazed jumping
out of the bus.

Notice how we started with the most important key point - the children. We told our
audience that the children had narrowly missed serious injury in a crash. Because a
lot of people might want to know who the children were, in the second paragraph we
gave them details of the school they attended. Finally we told the story in
chronological order, the order in which the event happened.

Story 3

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) sacked one of its
cleaners at the Mount Vernon Road dog pound for biting one of the animals in his
charge.

Mr Chew Sit Fun, an assistant at the SPCA pound, said he had bitten one of the dogs
to teach it a lesson.
"The dogs always barked at me and sometimes they tried to bite me," Mr Chew said.
"I didn't like it.

"I got fed up with one dog that tried to bite me, so I bit the dog in the leg to teach it a
lesson."

Mr Chew had worked at the SPCA pound since last year.

Manager Mrs Anita Chan confirmed that she had sacked Mr Chew for mistreating
one of the dogs.

This is the classic "man bites dog" story, with the added human angle of Mr Chew's
sacking. We used Mr Chew's quotes in full because they were so lively.