History
There are several stories about how the inverted pyramid format began in American journalism. Perhaps the most likely is that during the Civil War northern (and sometimes southern) news correspondents all wanted to make use of the military telegraph to wire back their stories of the day's battles. But there were so many correspondents who wanted to use the one telegraph line that the military could decide arbitrarily who got to use it . . . . and for how long. Add to that the fact that the losing side had a shred of ego left if it could prevent the papers from reporting that it had lost the battle. It took just one surviving soldier to sever a telegraph wire and put reporters out of business for a while.

Quite simply, you never know how much time you had to send your story. It was to your benefit to send the most important stuff first just in case your whole message did not make it for some reason.

Later the format survived because editors found the space available for actual news in their newspapers shrink (curse all those ads and photographs that take up so much space!). If a writer writes a story that is 20 inches long once it is set in those narrow column widths newspapers use, but there is only 15 inches of space, something has to be cut.

Now, an editor could meticulously sift through the story, striking a word here, dashing a phrase there, and come up with tighter story that fits. But that would take longer than most editors have. If the story is written with the most important stuff at the top and the least important stuff at the bottom, trimming it becomes a much easier job. The editor can just cut from the bottom and be assured that nothing vital has been left out.

Today, there is an even stronger motive for the survival of the inverted pyramid: Today's readers are bombarded with all kinds of media messages. They must ration their time spent with the media and must decide quickly which stories to read.

Studies show that the average readers today scan the newspaper's headlines and photos and from them decides to stop at only a few stories. Once stopped, they may read only the first couple of paragraphs of story and then move on. (The challenge, of course, is to write such a doggone interesting story that readers read the story from start to finish, but that rarely happens).

If readers only read the first few paragraphs and move on, we certainly want to give them the most important information. If readers stop after just one paragraph, they should walk away with a general understanding of the story. If they read two paragraphs, they have the general understanding and the next most important or interesting information. And so on, throughout the story. The weak writer is the one who buries an important detail deep in the story.

An example of burying the lead

In my newspaper days many years ago I worked with a lot of untrained writers who gave us news releases of club happenings. I remember one day receiving a news release from the local garden club. The story, written by a really nice little old lady, was written in a chronological format.

According to the story, first the club reviewed the minutes of last months meetings, and then went over some old business. After that they tackled new business.

Three pages into the story she got to the last item of the meeting, the guest speaker, who was some big muckety-muck from the Department of Agriculture, who told them how to avoid an infestation of a new plant parasite cropping up around the state.

Shoot, the words of the guest speaker were, by far, the most important and interesting part of the meeting. So important and interesting, in fact, that they should have been on page one of the small town paper. Even those not affiliated with the garden club could benefit from the speaker's words. But they were buried so deep into a story that was destined to be buried itself somewhere deep inside the paper.

We rewrote the story and gave it the play it deserved.

Another reason to make sure you start the story with a summary is because today's readers are so used to radio and television news, which rarely go beyond the summary lead. If newspapers want to compete, they've got to provide the readers with something somewhat familiar. The folks at Gannett Newspapers realized this when they introduced USA Today newspaper. They consciously have reduced the size of stories to no more than nine inches deep for most stories. They've found a large audience who simply wants a nugget of news.

Ending your story
When I took journalism in high school a common question we asked our instructor when we were given assignments was, "How long should this story be?" As adviser to student publications for more than 20 years I've lost count how many times new reporters have asked that question.

My high school journalism teacher's answer to the question was cryptic: She'd simply answer, "As long as a piece of string." Of course, we didn't understand that answer, so she would explain: "A piece of string is as long as it is, no longer. And if it needs to be shorter you can cut it." Oh, right, that made sense!

What she was trying to tell us was to let the story determine how long it needs to be. Do your research. Sort your thoughts. And write the story. When you are done telling the story, simply stop. Don't try to make it longer than it is by adding superfluous words. Don't try to put a conclusion on it. Simply stop.

You'll be surprised. The more you research your story, the less you'll worry about how long you have to make it. Instead, you'll worry about how short to make it. You'll have to decide what to leave out. And then some fool editor will come along and cut your piece of string and make it shorter. Just be sure you've put the most important stuff at the top.

Answer and e-mail the following questions to me.