The Associated Press Guide to News Writing Chapter 6 Review


In writing it is hard to pick up tone, but phrases convey tone in writing. In Rene J. Cappon’s Associated Press Guide to News Writing chapter 6: Tone: The Inner Music of Words – Cappon goes into the importance of tone. This week we will looking at this chapter and see how well Cappon conveys his message and why he expresses the importance of tone.

In the chapter Cappon explains that certain news stories have a certain kind of tone. Usually descriptive words can throw a meaning of the story off. One of the examples Cappon uses, “In 1917, when the czar got the boot…” A czar is forced from his phone, not boot or fired. While the meaning maybe similar to what happened, it is not accurate for the sake of the story. Cappon explains the necessity of having a transparent message in a news story because while a phrase may sound clever for your story it can throw the overall tone off.

Overall this chapter was not a bad addition to Cappon’s guidebook. It tells you what you are learning, explains what it is, how to find it and how to avoid it. However, Cappon was a little overzealous with the number of examples he put into the chapter making it a bit lengthier than it needed to be. Cappon again shows that writing in a straightforward and direct way is the best way to write news stories.

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