"So what?" Give readers the implications of the news--right up front. (Editing).

"It was probably in my introduction to journalism course, probably the first week of that course," Harry Baisden writes in the NEPA Executive Report The Editorial Process, "that I heard the five w's and h of a good news story--who, where, what, when, why, and how. The more of those you can squeeze into a lead and still keep it from running halfway down the page, the better off you are.

"In newsletter journalism we need to add a seventh, two-word phase that is probably more important than any of the other six--so what?...

"Your job is to come up with the 'so what?' angle. So this happened. So what? What does it mean to your readers? That's the key to good newsletter journalism. That's why people are often willing to pay you big bucks for a weekly, biweekly or even monthly news product that seldom competes with today's 'immediate' media on a timeliness basis.

"So the president signs into law a new bill affecting a big chunk of the industry you're selling to. So Congress passed a controversial bill. So a new regulation went into effect. So the Supreme Court decided an issue critical to your industry. So the Dow Jones fell 300 points. How will this information affect your readers, especially if that effect will be different from the rest of society?

"Which of the following leads do you think readers of a transportation newsletter will be more likely to read:

* 'President Clinton last week signed into law a new tax on over-the-road transport of heavy goods.'

* 'Over-the-road freight haulers face a 15% increase in federal taxes thanks to a new tax bill President Clinton approved last week.'

"I know the second paragraph is not as succinct as the first, violating the rules I gave [earlier in the report]. But by working in the impact on your readers, you give your reader much more of a reason to read the story. So what? So the president signed a bill. But the impact of that bill on you, the reader, will be 15% more in taxes.

"In some shops, this is called the implication lead. What is the implication of a particular event on the reader? Whatever you call it, the more you can tell your reader what the impact of an event or condition will be on her, the more chance you're going to have to get her to write that all-important communication to you, a signed check at renewal time. And remember, she's busy, so you've got to grab her early with that implication.

"Don't assume that just because you're writing about a subject that is the 'talk of the town' in your industry, your readers will read anything about it. Sometimes it's just the opposite. If you have an environmental newsletter and assume that everything you write about global warming is going to grab your readers' attention simply because it's global warming, think again. More often than not your reader has seen story after story in his local newspaper, in news and feature magazines, on television--you name it. By the time he gets your newsletter, he well may be in the 'If I see one more story on global warming, I'm going to scream' mood.

"Make sure he knows, right up front, that your story is going to do more for him that all those others he's read. Don't give him a chance to scream. Put the implication, the 'so what,' the impact right there in the lead."

Excerpted from The Editorial Process, by Harry Baisden, published by the Newsletter & Electronic Publishers Association. 96 pp., $77, plus $3.95 S&H. May be ordered directly from NL/NL on enclosed Marketplace order form.

RELATED ARTICLE: Simplify, avoid clutter, prune, think twice

That's what Rene Cappon wrote in The Word, An Associated Press Guide to Good News Writing, referring to structure and sentence. This should be the mantra of all journalists, but particularly for newsletter journalists.

* Simplify. Why say "at that point in time"? Isn't "then" a much simpler way of saying it?

* Avoid clutter. Why clutter up the simple statement that "The Asian fiscal crisis is causing chaos on Wall Street" by writing that "Financial conditions in the Pacific Rim are resulting in chaotic conditions in the U.S. stock market"?

* Prune. Look for unnecessary modifers that can be pruned like deadwood from your sentences. Words like "very," "essentially" and "literally" seldom add anything to your meaning....

* Think twice. Thinking twice from an economic standpoint means going back over what you've written and making sure you've been as simple as possible, avoided clutter and pruned where you should prune. Thinking twice is also important to clarity.

Harry Baisden