Longtime Inquirer reporter and editor Vernon Clark returned to the newsroom to teach the fundamentals of newswriting to students.

He began with the inverted pyramid and the core questions that stories seek to answer:

• Who?
• What? 
• Where? 
• When? 
• Why? 
• How? 

.@vernon_clark teaches the fundamentals of news writing. pic.twitter.com/qsUKF7Mtsg

— Acel Moore Workshop (@acelmoorejourn) February 11, 2017

Clark walked students through how two stories presented the information to answer those questions. Staying factual is important, he said, and answering “Why?” is often the hardest part.

“Alternative facts? There are no such thing. The facts are the facts, and that’s how we do it in journalism.”

In era of #fakenews, #alternativefacts, "it's important that journalists are there to separate facts from the non-facts." – @vernon_clark pic.twitter.com/bunw5qlqp6

— Acel Moore Workshop (@acelmoorejourn) February 11, 2017

He also emphasized the importance of recognizing the most important elements of the story: “It needs to be timely, and it needs to be significant.”