My first experience of journalism was aged 15, as a work experience assistant at my local newspaper. I spent a week in the newsroom, and for the best part of it I was bashing out ‘News In Brief’ articles – the ‘NIBs’ that nobody else wanted to write.<\/p>\n
A NIB, for the uninitiated, generally runs between 50 and 100 words and normally sits alongside a bunch of its peers in a boxed-out column. Headlines are emboldened but there generally aren’t pictures, so the emphasis is on creating a column that the reader can scan and choose what’s interesting.<\/p>\n
Two decades later, I’ve come to the conclusion that all journalists should start their career writing NIBs – the skill of being able to distill a 700 word press release, a one page fax or a hastily-scribbled set of notes into an informative snippet is more important now than it ever has been.<\/p>\n
This seems counter-intuitive, given that the shift from print to digital has made the column inch limitation a thing of the past. But digital has also slashed the attention spans of readers, creating new ‘modes’ of reading which aren’t well served by longform style – I love a ten-page investigation as much as the next guy, but I’m never going to get through it on the bus.<\/p>\n
Writing NIBs also forces journalists to cut their writing, removing the unnecessary metaphor or wordplay which tend to characterize bad writing. News journalism, after all, is about relaying a story in a manner in which it can be understood.<\/p>\n
That’s why AP targets 300-500 words per story. It’s why this blog post is under 300 words. And it’s why every journalism career should begin with NIBs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My first experience of journalism was aged 15, as a work experience assistant at my local newspaper. I spent a week in the newsroom, and for the best part of it I was bashing out ‘News In Brief’ articles – the ‘NIBs’ that nobody else wanted to write. A NIB, for the uninitiated, generally runs …<\/p>\n