News Writing Format of English Summary Lead from the COVID-19 Situation in the Bangkok Post and the Nation Online Newspapers

Abstract

This research aimed to analyze the format and compare the frequency of writing a summary of English-language lead news stories from the news of the COVID-19 situation in the Bangkok Post and The Nation Online newspapers. The sample group used in the research was a summary lead in English from 458 news stories on the COVID-19 situation in the Bangkok Post and The Nation Online newspapers using a specific random sampling method. The conceptual framework of this research was the 5Ws 1 H lead news writing format, according to Harris and Johnson's (1999) and McKane (2014)'s concept. The statistics used in the data analysis was the mean percentage. The results revealed that the most common form of news writing based on the COVID-19 situation was who lead. The Bangkok Post newspaper found that the news writing style was led by who lead the most, with 164 or 56.16%, followed by what lead with 66 or 22.6%, and found how lead was the least at 5 or 1.71%. The Nation newspaper found that the news writing style was led by who lead the most, with 77 or 46.39% as well, followed by what lead at 43 or 25.96%, and the why lead and how lead was equal to the least at 4 or 2.41 % respectively. The research shows that the most common form of news writing of summary leads, starting with who leads. The writing style focuses on the people primarily responsible for events in the news, a style prevalent in English-language newspapers in the East (Qian, 2002).