ABSTRACT
A wider range of news is available than ever before, but audiences have less time to absorb it; as a result of that and the prevalence of digital and mobile devices, news stories are getting shorter.
Editing for brevity means trimming stories to fit the needs of the audience; it seeks to clarify and simplify as well as shorten news accounts.
Key skills in editing for brevity include eliminating repetition and secondary information, providing context, and using quotes and details wisely.
Stories written in the inverted pyramid form are the simplest to trim, but all major cuts to stories deserve careful attention so that important details are not lost.
Shortening print and broadcast stories for use on the web or other digital media requires thinking about users’ needs and digital habits.
The shortest stories — one- and two-paragraph summaries sometimes called briefs — are growing in importance as breaking news items and tweets on the web and mobile media.
Web packaging — breaking up a print story into one more suitable for an online audience — is another form of shortening stories into its various parts.
The Chicago Sun-Times home page uses a combination of story summaries and headlines to give readers a quick take on the news and allow them to link easily to more complete coverage. The summaries are not simply leads; they present enough tightly edited information to stand on their own. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203370322/44e2d010-0046-4084-9aec-84814efdf8ca/content/fig9_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>