Kinds of story

Hard news

News of serious, timely events such as politics, crime, courts and disasters, reported straight and fast.

Hard news is the daily business of the press: what happened, where, when and to whom, told quickly and without decoration. It runs on the inverted pyramid, so the key facts come first and a sub can cut from the bottom. The tone is plain and the news value is obvious. Soft news is its gentler cousin.