Structuring a libel case
Twitter is where shortform comes into its own. With only 140 characters to play with, although this is changing with the introduction of 280 character tweets, you need to be concise whilst still telling the story.
The tweet below by Associated Press sports writer, Rob Harris, is a perfect example of a short-form story.
This tweet gives an abstract view of the story and for anyone who’s just scrolling past it actually tells them everything they need to know.
Who: Swiss federal prosecuters and Qatari President of Paris Saint-Germain
What: Announce bribery case
When: “Breaking”. This implies that it happened today, you can also see a time and date stamp at the bottom of the tweet.
Why: FIFA probe
The only thing that is really missing from this specific tweet is the ‘Where’ however, it does appear further down in the subsequent thread…
As the tweet is reporting on what has happened, it also makes use of an effaced narrator.
I think the first tweet, and the thread following it too, tells the reader who may not be a football fan everything they need to know about the story.
By constraining a tweet to 140 characters it actually exposes a new audience to news — news that is very snappy and only contains the most important information so that you can scroll past and still be able to have a conversation about the news today.
Moving onto a mediumform piece on the same story written by The Independent.
The structure of this article is an Inverted Triangle as it starts with the Abstract. It then gives some more information on the story, the Orientation. Next is a quote from the Swiss Atorney General and this provides an Evaluation, followed by some background on the overall story behind the latest proceedings, a Coda.
As in the shortform version, this story makes use of an effaced narrator.
This mediumform piece uses the past and present tense well and quite subtly. The headline is present tense, “…Swiss prosecutors announce” whilst the body uses past, “Swiss prosecutors have opened a criminal proceeding”.
The article also includes a slideshow which gives you more information about the World Cup, so while it’s not specifically to do with the bribery case, it offers the reader something further to keep them on the site.
