If you happen to stumble in a newsroom and utter the words "inverted pyramid" you will catch the attention of every remaining journalist in the room.
No, inverted pyramid is not a sexual position favored by journalists - at least not yet. That is called the nut graf.
No, inverted pyramid is the way every rank and file journalist writes stories. Without it, journalists would simply rewrite their notes verbatim from their reporters notebooks, including margin notes about which councilmember smelled like garlic and details about the cute redhead in front not sporting a wedding ring.
From Day One in J-School, journalism professors try their damnedest to pound out every last ounce of creativity from young, budding journalists. And the first step in doing that is forcing journalism students to adopt the rigid inverted pyramid doctrine.
The inverted pyramid rule tells journalists to put all the important stuff - the who, what, when, where, why and how - in the beginning of a story, followed by the the less important stuff, also known in the biz as fluff. Editors tell journalists this helps readers get into a story but we all know it is because readers have the attention span of fruit flys and we lose them after two graphs. Realistically, a journalist could start a story about school cuts but after the third or fourth graf, he or she could go into a rant about the the piss-poor pay of journalists or about how his editor's favorite hobby is to schedule meetings at 7 a.m. or during lunch and the reader would be none the wiser.
Inverted pyramids are part of a journalist's life as much as budget meetings, deadlines and alcohol-induced romantic encounters. And beloved as much.
Illustration from dailywritingtips.com
