Wikinews talk:Who What When Why Where and How

MSM and "when"

I don't remember who was talking about "when" and why we should not do what MSM is doing? See this:

1. BBC, December 10, 2017: "Apple is close to buying the music recognition app Shazam"
2. The Guardian, December 11, 2017 "Apple has bought Shazam"
3. LA Times, December 11, 2017 "Both Apple and Shazam confirmed the acquisition Monday."
4. CNBC, December 11, 2017 "Apple confirmed on Monday that it would buy music recognition app Shazam."
5. Business Insider, December 11, 2017 "Apple has bought Shazam"
6. Reuters December 11, 2017

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There is a difference between might acquire, announcing acquisition, announcing intentions to buy and actually buy. So before asking is it important to tell "when" with a day -- tell me, who was owner of Shazam on December 11?
•–• 09:20, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Examples missing

I would be interested in adding examples of this in existing published articles.

There are some difficult ones, such as one (unclear how?), two (how unknown and the first paragraph says so), three (unclear how did they announce their decision in the first para?).

There are heaps of easier ones to illustrate this point with.

I guess that man pages, such as this one for task manager on Linux, can give an idea. Examples go to the end of the page, followed by contact details.

Regards, --Gryllida (talk) 02:54, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I was about to say that the 5W advice should be clearly labeled as advice, not as a do-this-every-time kind of thing, but it looks like this guideline already does that: "Treat them as flexible reminders of the kinds of information important to include." The How and Why sections both say that the information is not needed every time. "If unclear, say how," as in no need to do so when the method is likely to be clear. The Why section explicitly states that we often can't do this without violating neutrality.

Also, this guideline seems to apply to whole articles, not the lede. It does not say "put all 5W in the lede." Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:04, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

See WN:Lede. -- Gryllida (talk) 03:26, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

And WN:LEDE says "Don't feel stifled by this suggestion. Those experienced in reporting learn to determine which of those six questions are the most relevant to the story (and, more importantly, the reader). This gets easier with practice, as does most writing." In other words, it's a subjective "do most of these most of the time" and not a bright-line "this is required for publication." Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:45, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

It means "after gaining enough experience, you would know which ones you can't answer: and you don't have to. For example, you can't answer 'why' for 'Team A defeats Team B'. With experience you would learn for some type of articles some of the WH questions are not relevant. If they are irrelevant, don't answer. Else, you must."--103.66.49.33 (talk) 16:51, 10 March 2020 (UTC)