Meeting: Did You ...

... write about everything that happened at the meeting? Or just the things you thought were most newsworthy?

And how would you rank the newsworthiness of the items that took place at the meeting? These were the things, in order of occurrence, at the school board meeting:

1. Retiring teachers honored
2. New budget approved that includes construction of a new school, pay raises
3. Board keeps summer school intact
4. Board decides to keep current biology textbooks and not teach creationism
5. School volunteers honored


Does the order of importance match the order of occurrence? How would you rank these things, in terms of importance?

The importance ranking should match your order of presentation, regardless of the order in which things took place. 

And when we talk about importance, think about what things are the most interesting or relevant or useful to your audience. Think about what is most unusual that took place. Think about what would have the most impact. Think about what people would be most curious about, or wanting to know about.

If you're not sure if your ranking of items based on newsworthiness is the best, here's a good rule of thumb: the item you wrote about the most is probably the one worth the best placement. The one you wrote about the least should probably be presented last, or maybe even not at all. 

I'd argue these were proper orders of importance. From the school meeting:

1. Board decides to keep current biology textbooks and not teach creationism

2 or 3. New budget approved that includes construction of a new school, pay raises
3 or 2. Board keeps summer school intact
4 or 5. Retiring teachers honored
4 or 5. School volunteers honored


Our job as journalists isn't to necessarily record everything, and put things in the order in which it took place. That's stenography. Rather, we decide what was most important, and rank things in the order of importance.

What did you do, and why?