The Associated Press Guide to News Writing Chapter 9 Review


Writing is like cooking. For cooking you need to have the ingredients flow, work together, and be properly cooked. In news writing you need your words to flow and sound good with your story. The words need to have color. In the ninth chapter of the Associated Press Guide to News Writing by Rene J. Cappon, the chapter talks about color in news writing. This week we will be looking at the ninth chapter in Cappon’s book.

Cappon writes that color is matter of the right details that are observed directly from witnesses, with the breath of actuality. Color helps give a precision of visual detail and paints a vivid image in a story. Color is a way of seeing a story which allows reporters to give their readers insight to the story. Colors are words that are for description and insight into a story.

This chapter was hard to follow because of the way Cappon paced it. Cappon gives quite a bit of examples in this chapter but he doesn’t explain why these examples were perfect for color or why they lacked them.  The chapter felt like it lacked the communication that Cappon wanted to convey with the message for this chapter. This was a weak chapter and it feels like Cappon’s chapters are getting progressively worse as the book is draws closer towards the end.

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