Most news is about something that the usual viewer can understand because he has learned something about it. But when the reporter writes about science he not only has to translate certain terms but often has to explain a cause and effect relationship. The material is so often complex that no one can develop a single set of rules for writing about science. About the only rule that fits most situations is one that relates to the beginning of the news item, for the writer’s first objective is to induce the viewer to begin the programme and to continue his viewing? There are a few ways in which this objective can be achieved.
One device is to begin by asking a question. Here is an example by David Perlman of the San Francisco Chronicle:
A Canadian geophysicist proposed an answer yesterday to one of evolution’s major mysteries. Why is it, the scientists ask, that during certain periods of geological history life suddenly seems to spurt?
A second example of this device is in which the writer, who is explaining the expanding universe, asks the question “Why is the world dark at night?”
Another way to induce the viewer to start and go on reading is a beginning that presents something happening. This can usually be done when the writer is describing an instrument or some other scientific object.
