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A newspaper is a publication that is issued daily or weekly and includes local and international news stories, advertisements, announcements, opinions, cartoons, sports news and television listings. It is an important method of letting the public know everything that is happening in their local area and around the world. Even with the advancements in computer technology, newspapers continue to be an important aspect of everyday life. 

It is important to know the sections of the newspaper and what information each one contains. 

The front page has the most important stories of the day. Each story has its own "headline" and a "by-line" giving the name of the reporter who wrote the story. Every newspaper story has to answer the following questions: 

 Who? - who is the story about? 

 What? - what is the story about? 

 Where? - where does the story take place? 

 When? - when does the story take place? 

 Why? - why is this happening? (This is not always possible to answer) 

 How? - how this story happened. 

Although every news story cannot fit into a formula, there is a certain structure that is fairly common of all news stories. 

1. The first paragraph gives the answers to the most important of the 5 W's and H. The 

second paragraph tells the rest of the 5 Ws if they were not included in the lead. 

2. The rest of the paragraphs elaborates on the information given in the opening and gives 

more information and details. 

3. Background information is included if it is giving new information to a story that had 

been printed previously in the newspaper. Sometimes it gives information which is 

necessary to understand the story.  

4. A quotation or a statement about the news story is often included in order to explain the importance of the story. 

5. Details are provided about the story and are organized into paragraphs. Each paragraph provides one aspect of the story and the details are arranged in order of importance.