Walk Like An Egyptian

The Inverted Pyramid. The Princeton Offense of print journalism. If done well, you automatically have a well balanced print article. But, to borrow from my internships with the vastly different Connecticut Post and the New York Post, the inverted pyramid is like predominately white Connecticut high school basketball while more of a balanced pyramid is like the streetball-esque PSAL basketball. The Princeton Offense will not work in the PSAL. The inverted pyramid does not work in broadcasting.

Very similar to why shorter and simpler sentences work better in broadcast than print, not overwhelming a broadcast lead with the Who, What, Where, When, and Why will help keep the attention of the viewer on the newscast. Not using all of that information in the lead or the very beginning of the story prevents the viewer from being overwhelmed with information and it allows the anchor to not speak until he runs out of breath. The flow of the broadcast story would be greatly interrupted.

In a print story using the inverted pyramid, the story can tend to trail off as the story ends with general information that may not be attention grabbing. This obviously can't happen in a broadcast story, as viewers would be racing for the remote. That is why a more balanced pyramid is required, where the Who, What, Why, Where, and When are spread throughout the story. This keeps viewers interested throughout the entire story, instead of possibly confusing them early and leaving them with little details later on.