When the authors of Campus Weblines spent a month with the Stuyvesant 8 at their school in lower Manhattan in New York City, much of the teaching time was spent on writing exercises like the ones in this chapter. Many of those exercises dealt with writing a lead, the crucial first paragraph of a news article, and that is where this chapter on newswriting starts as well. We will then take a wider view and look at the structure of different kinds of articles. Timeliness means something just happened is happening now or will happen soon. Importance means it is significant to a number of readers.
Rarity means it is unusual.
The closer an event is to the paper's readers, the less important it needs to be to be considered newsworthy for that audience. An article with human interest tells readers something they find poignant or entertaining.