Talk:Inverted pyramid
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is part of WikiProject Journalism, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to journalism. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. | |
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a message to explain the ratings and to identify possible improvements to the article. | |
IMO the described usage is misleading because in this case the metaphor is supposed to depict quality (importance) by means of quantity (size). IMO when visualizing a pyramid a more readily impression is quantity into quantity: on the top of the pyramid a *few* but *important* things; at the bottom of the pyramid is *multitude* of less important things.
The pyramid metaphor is a popular depiction of society, e.g., king&queen (important few) on top and plain folks (or slaves or whoever) on the bottom. On the other hand, inverted pyramid is tip *down*, hence the clash of the two metaphors.
Well, journalists, who probably coined the term, are hardly known to be experts in science :-)
mikkalai 25 Nov 2003
- I agree completely, but that's the way it is, as Walter Cronkite would say. It would be interesting to see if anyone has found a more descriptive metaphor. Actually I came here looking to add a "Spiral approach" article, which is a similar concept in teaching, where you first learn broadly about a subject with generalities, then go into the details. I like that because too often the details get you so bogged down that you miss the really important things, so it's also like the phrase, "the critical few", or "the tyranny of the urgent", or "can't see the forest for the trees". I knew it would relate to journalism and fit in here. Also, the more I think about that one, it's also not the best metaphor. Something like 20 questions describes it the best, where you communicate as if you could be cut off at any time, which relates very well to the telegraph origin. So it seems like an upright pyramid makes more sense. Anyway, if anyone has any ideas on what should go into a "Spiral approach article, please add something here or let me know (or however it should be done - I'm still new here. Can you create a talk page before the article page for brainstorming?. Spalding 12:08, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
-
- I'm a journalist and I've never heard of spiral articles. But the hourglass format might be similar: a summary, then a narrative.Maurreen 14:45, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
-
-
- I just compared a spiral approach to learning to the inverted pyramid. It's not a journalism term at all, more of a teaching one that I remember from school textbooks. I'm an engineer, not a teacher.
-
- I agree, in fact—not knowing the phrase before—my first impression was that article describes the wrong order of transferring information (an anti-pattern) :)) --Kubanczyk 22:31, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] quote
"General Grant and his wife were advertised to be at the theatre this" may be a mistake, or an unexplained demonstration of a telegraph interruption. Badanedwa 08:17, Jun 21, 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Deletions
I deleted the sentence with Grant (see above) and the hourglass link, because the link did not refer to writing. Maurreen 14:45, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The Lincoln story is hardly an inverted pyramid (as described in the rest of the article) but a chronological narrative. Indeed, the most important point (that the president is at death's door) is at the end.
On the matter of the metaphor, maybe news-style is better seen as a pyramid that's actually the right way up. The key facts (the point) are summarised briefly at the start. The detail, which gets less and less crucial and possibly more and more verbose, follows in declining order of importance.
www.danon.co.uk
[edit] Uncited statement
"Despite the name, the figure is almost always drawn simply as an equilateral triangle with an apex pointing downward, rather than a three-dimensional pyramid. [citation needed]"
