Structural arrangement:
Conventional new s reports follow the classical inverted pyram id structure,putting the most relevant message in the lead to attract the audience’s attention w ith heavy-weight information feeds reduced to the essential fundamentals. There is not much space for a story-telling or dramatic structure to fully unfold in the main body.The idea is to make it easy for the audiences to get the gist of the latest updates even at a hasty glance.
In comparison, the structure and organization are essential for investigative pieces to shine. It’s only job half done when journalists simplify complicated issues into basics in laymen’s terms. How to string the basics together in a coherent and engaging manner determ ines how effective the message comes across. A dramatic or story-telling narrative structure is increasingly adopted by journalists to lure the audiences into focused reading. Such structural arrangement seldom works well w ithout the presence of strong human elements and relatable characters. Wellchosen quotes from representative characters, direct, indirect or partial ones, are the workhorse of investigative pieces to arouse the audiences’ empathy.
A recent example of such works is New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-w inning series about the taxi industry in the metropolis, exposing the “predatory loans that shattered the lives of vulnerable drivers”. [2](https://www.daowen.com)
The story exposes how seem ingly tem pting loan offers ended up plunging numerous taxi drivers into insurmountable debt traps in frantic efforts to buy a medallion, the much-coveted city perm it to own their cabs. It starts small, from a phone call to Mohammed Hoque, an ordinary driver of Bangladeshi origin, who was just about to start the day’s work. The caller offered M r. Hoque a chance to get a loan for the medallion w ithout going into the specif ic terms. M r. Hoque jumped at the opportunity. He’s full of hope for the prosperity this would entail for his fam ily,w ithout the least idea that the contract would usher in a massive debt far larger than what he could possibly earn in an entire life.
M r. Hoque is only one of the New York imm igrant drivers enticed into such punitive scheme. The story opens w ith a delayed lead, postponing the identif ication of the essential problem to a later stage in the narrative, yet personifying the seriousness of problem w ith a tangible human presence upfront. The appearance of a strong character is essential to draw the readers into the narrative by arousing their sympathies from early on. Once securing the readers’ attention, the reporter moves on to other drivers’ experiences and breaks down the loan schemes bit by bit until the beguiling mechanisms are fully revealed. Human interests are highlighted throughout the entire process, reinforcing the message that drivers of ethnic m inority backgrounds fall victim to the illusion of success falsely magnif ied by a poorly regulated industry. In an echo ending, the story goes back to M r. Hoque,the Bangladeshi driver that the readers met in the lead. A strong quote from the character completes the story-telling arc and leave much space for ref lection, “It’s an unhuman life, I drive and drive and drive. But I don’t know what my destination is”, said M r. Hoque. [3]