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| Theme - Journalism jargons |
When writing a novel, authors introduce events that lead up to the main plot. In theatre, the word refers to the background of the character.
In journalism, a backstory could be a small paragraph comprising two sentences or a full-length story of around 300 words.
PURPOSE OF RECALL
Reporters introduce a backstory paragraph typically in cases when there has been a development to a story that happened a few days or weeks or even months before. It serves as a recall for the reader who probably would have forgotten what the original story was.
An example could be the arrest of a person suspected to be involved in a murder, which happened a few weeks before. One of the aims of providing the backstory is to bring the reader up to speed. It also serves to provide the larger picture as well as perspective to an ongoing story.
On a website, in the digital copy, the backstory can be provided in the form of hyperlinks to stories published earlier. Nevertheless, it is always better to provide a backgrounder, because the reader should not be put through the hassles of clicking on multiple web links to understand the background to a particular story.
DESCRIPTION OF SERIES OF EVENTS
If the background information has lots of details, then the backstory can be in the form of a short article. This happens when there are multiple interlinked elements to a story, and becomes difficult to summarise all that in a short paragraph.
An example of this could be circumstances surrounding a particular news development. Imagine a political party nominating its candidate for an election. It is possible that there was huge drama preceding the nomination. So, that can be described in detail as a backstory accompanying the main article, providing a better perspective to the candidature.
REUTERS BACKSTORY
Reputed news agency Reuters, in April 2017, introduced a feature called Backstory to provide details to its readers on how a particular story was discovered, what all went into the gathering of data and the writing of the article.
Readers who are interested in journalism can follow the Reuters Backstory here.
(This post is a part of the "Blogging from A to Z Challenge April 2019".)