Notebooks · the four long lessons
What a lesson contains
A lesson is the desk's longest format. It follows one task from the first decision to the last sign-off, in ten numbered sections, and it is written to be read in order rather than dipped into. Each lesson carries a comparison table, a working timeline in days or hours, a checklist to use before filing, and three questions that readers send in most often. One lesson also holds the site's only arithmetic tool.
The four lessons were chosen because they are the tasks that most often go wrong for people writing their first publishable pieces: shaping a news story, preparing and conducting an interview, checking a claim before it is printed, and turning a notebook full of observation into a feature that holds together. Nothing in them depends on a particular newsroom, publication or platform.
Writing a news story
The full sequence from the first phone call to filing, with the story-structure meter for reading time and lede share.
Lesson 02Conducting an interview
Preparation, terms, the question ladder, the room itself, and everything that has to happen after the recorder stops.
Lesson 03Checking the facts
A procedure for testing a draft claim by claim, with a verification log and the arithmetic that catches most number errors.
Lesson 04From notebook to feature
Turning several days of observation and interviews into a long piece that holds together, without inventing a single detail.
| Lesson | Shape | Extras | Reading time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Writing a news story | Ten sections, from first call to filed copy | Table, timeline, checklist, story-structure meter | About 20 minutes |
| Conducting an interview | Ten sections, from request to read-back | Table, timeline, checklist, three questions | About 20 minutes |
| Checking the facts | Ten sections, claim to verdict | Table, timeline, checklist, worked arithmetic | About 20 minutes |
| From notebook to feature | Ten sections, reporting to final read | Table, timeline, checklist, word budget arithmetic | About 20 minutes |
Editorial notes on the lessons
Every lesson is written from the same sourcing rule: describe practice that can be traced to a published code, a statute, an official record or an openly documented newsroom convention, and label everything else as convention rather than requirement. Where a section touches Irish law, it names the instrument and then sends the reader to a qualified professional instead of paraphrasing a defence. Where a section describes a habit, it says so, because habits vary between newsrooms and change with format.
The worked figures in the lessons are deliberately mundane: counts of words, numbers of sentences, minutes of review, days between commission and filing, percentages of a story spent on its opening. No monetary example appears anywhere on the site, and no example is built from a real named person, because a teaching example that invents a person also invents a fact.
How the lessons are reviewed
Each lesson is re-read on a fixed cycle: annually for technique, and immediately whenever a statute, statutory instrument or published code that the text names is amended. The review checks four things: that every internal link still resolves, that each named body still exists under that name and remit, that no sentence has drifted into advice, and that the checklist still matches the sections above it.
When a correction is made, the change is dated and the reason recorded. A correction that changes meaning is described in the text itself; a typographical fix is logged but not annotated. Readers can request a correction through the route on the contact page and should expect a reply within five working days.
Reading order suggestions
- If you have never filed copy before, read writing a news story first, then the inverted-pyramid subject chapter.
- If you have a name and a phone number but no story yet, start with conducting an interview.
- If you have a draft and a nagging doubt, go to checking the facts and keep the verification log open beside you.
- If you have three notebooks and no shape, read from notebook to feature alongside the narrative-structure subject.
Before you start a lesson
- Have a real piece of work in front of you; the notes are written to be applied, not admired.
- Keep a blank page for questions the chapter raises and cannot answer.
- Note which sections describe law and mark them for professional confirmation.
- Write down your own house conventions where they differ from the notes.
- Finish the checklist at the end of the lesson before you file anything.