What follows is a newswriting exercise. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
It’s 9:30 p.m. You're on the night shift at the Centerville Gazette. You hear some chatter on the police scanner and call the cops. Lt. Jack Feldman says he’s not sure yet what’s happening but he thinks a plane crashed near the local airport. Centerville Airport is a small facility used mostly by private pilots flying single-engine craft. Your editor tells you to get over there as fast as you can.
It’s a 15-minute drive and when you get there you hear sirens and see the flashing lights of probably about a dozen emergency vehicles in a field about 200 yards from the control tower. That area is fenced off so you park and run over to the tower, where a command post has been set up. The weather is lousy; there’s sleet and a strong, driving wind. A man who identifies himself as Jeff Belden of the local Federal Aviation Administration field office tells you the following:
“Uh, yeah, it was a single-engine plane – a Cessna 172 Skyhawk, I believe. It was taking off about 30 minutes ago when it crashed in a field adjacent to the runway. The control tower tells me the pilot managed to get off the ground but immediately after takeoff he radioed the tower, saying he was having problems controlling the aircraft. Shortly after that the plane crashed. This could have been weather-related, we’re not sure yet. We have no information on the pilot or any passengers or their conditions. This crash is under investigation.”
You call your editor. He says you’ve got 45 minutes to bang out the story. You’ll write it on your laptop and e-mail it to the editor. He tells you to add whatever background you can find on the Cessna 172 Skyhawk.
You write the story and just as you’re about to send it you call Lt. Feldman on your cellphone. “We’ve got IDs on the victims of the crash,” he says. He tells you two people were killed – the pilot and owner of the plane, Dr. Richard Sabatini, a prominent local cardiac surgeon, and his wife, Lydia. Feldman says the two had planned to fly to the exclusive Fontainebleau resort in the northern part of the state for a skiing holiday.
Write the story in 45 minutes or less.
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