Here are some examples of identifying narrative techniques in factual storytelling

Students on the Narrative module at Birmingham City University have been learning how factual storytellers use a range of techniques to tell their stories effectively — and the impact of different editorial decisions. Read their analysis below:

• FT article: Armed groups, coca crops and death’: how prices crashed for cocaine’s raw material. “The author’s choice to include multiple characters and settings creates a lot of movement for the story. There is firstly movement between the characters themselves … movement is also created through the use of various settings.”
• BBC stories on the darker side of ballet schools: “In terms of temporality, they focused the story between 2004 and 2022 on some student’s experiences. There was use of flashbacks to see archival footage and imagery. There was use of both mimesis and diegesis as they had visual aids to show as well as moments where voiceovers were used to tell the story either by the reporter or someone else in the story.”
• BBC Sport — WSL: As womens football breaks records, can it also break barriers?
• Sky Sports Monday Night Football — Jamie Carragher FUMES at VAR ‘slowing down footage’. “They intersperse their analysis with anecdotes, to not only reinforce and contextualise their knowledge, and thus their opinions, but also as suggested by Glass: ‘weave in points of reflection’. [Jones to Lampard] “Frank as a former midfielder who has made many tackles like this, what’s your take on it?””
• AP: Man United stunned by Galatasaray as Ten Hag’s team loses 3–2 in the Champions League
• Sky News: Sheffield Wednesday Fans’ Discourteous Conduct Towards Bradley Lowery
• Guardian: Three Generations of Windrush family struggling to prove they are British. “The writer never explicitly mentions themselves or their own opinions, as is fairly conventional with news media.
  Rather, there are many quotes from the victims of the windrush scandal.”