Lift ideas off the page with display copy
There is one great thing about the inverted pyramid lead.
“The only benefit of the inverted pyramid lead was that it put a lot of valuable information high in the story,” write Mario R. Garcia and Pegie Stark, authors of Eyes On the News: The Poynter Institute Color Research.
But, they say, there is a workaround: “Some papers are learning to do that with more effective heads and deck[s].”
That’s right: Lift your key ideas off the page with display copy.
Six places to put your key messages
Garcia and Stark recommend that you embed your most important information in:
- A main head
- A deck to expand the head
- Color-coded summaries of the three parts or modules of the story
- Subheads and summaries at each module
- A numbering system where appropriate
- A closing box of more information
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Source: Mario R. Garcia and Pegie Stark, Eyes On the News: The Poynter Institute Color Research, The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, 1991
