In writing news stories, journalism students are taught to follow the five Ws and the H --- who, what, when, where, why, and how --- yet pinpointing the where sometimes gets lost in the excitement of covering events such as with a deadly Hollywood fire last Friday, notes Grumpy Editor.
An Associated Press story reported three seriously injured gunshot victims were pulled from a burning Hollywood home where two others, including the gunman, died.
The story described the blaze that required 130 firefighters two-and-a-half hours to knock down.
With photos, coverage took up as much as half a page, with AP photos, in some newspapers on Saturday.
The story included quotes from neighbors.
Was the scene amid luxury homes in the Hollywood Hills? Was it close to famous Hollywood and Vine? Or perhaps near the Sunset Strip?
Readers of the AP story (along with broadcast accounts picking it up) never learned exactly where the incident took place.
Location was not pinpointed in the lengthy account.
Thus, it made traveling out-of-town Hollywood residents uneasy and concerned on learning of the happening.
It wouldn’t have taken much additional space to insert the precise location of the single story home: 517 N. Harvard Blvd.
And while mention of Hollywood always grabs attention, the scene was in an older, far eastern end of Hollywood --- three and a half miles northwest of the Los Angeles Civic Center.
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