• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • RSS
  • Archives
  • Subscribe
The Nut Graph

The Nut Graph

Making Sense of Politics & Pop Culture

  • Projects
    • MP Watch
    • Found in Conversation
  • Current Issues
    • 6 Words
    • Commentary
    • Features
    • Found in Quotation
    • News
  • Columns
  • Interviews
    • Exclusives
    • Found in Malaysia
  • Multimedia
    • Audio
    • Pictures
    • Videos
  • Corrections
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Vault
    • Found in Translation

What is The Nut Graph?

About The Nut Graph | The Nut Graph Team | Our Contributors

The nut graph: The point of the story in a nutshell

AT The Nut Graph, we believe that it’s not enough to just report if we want to add value to our readers’ experience of the news. We think it’s important for journalists to make sense of and draw conclusions from the events and people we write about, and to piece past and present facts together so we can figure out what it all means.

That’s why the nut graph is so important in a news story. It’s the paragraph that explains, in a nutshell, the point of a story. It’s the kernel that provides rocket fuel for our reports and understanding and knowledge for our readers. The nut graph lets readers know why an article was important or significant enough that it had to be written, published and read. It allows readers to understand why the heck they were invited to the party and why they should seriously consider attending.

The US-based Poynter Institute explains that the “nut graf” has several purposes:

  • It justifies the story by telling readers why they should care.
  • It provides a transition from the lead and explains the lead and its connection to the rest of the story.
  • It often tells readers why the story is timely.
  • It often includes supporting material that helps readers see why the story is important.
    (For a detailed discussion, see http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=52&aid=34457)

In effect, the nut paragraph (“graph” or “graf” is short for “paragraph”) is the “So what?” paragraph of a story. By constantly encouraging ourselves — as journalists — and our readers, to ask “So what?” (i.e. “So, what’s the point?”), The Nut Graph hopes to provide insight into the news through incisive news reporting, editorials and commentaries.

As an independent Malaysian news site, we aim to provide space for columnists and reader comments from as broad a political spectrum, and from as many sectors of interest, as possible. We cannot draw the big picture if we don’t see all the parts of the elephant in front of us.

We believe that both politics and popular culture provide us indicators about the health of our democracy and the directions we may be heading in as a nation. Hence our tag line: “Making sense of politics and popular culture”.

“Politics” for us is not just about politicians, political parties and government. But, more importantly, politics is about the relationships of power among different stakeholders involved in an issue. Hence, we think it’s important for us to understand the politics of race in Malaysia, for example, or the politics of education, of the environment, of healthcare, of local councils and governments, and so on, so that we can have a fuller understanding about the state of this nation we call home.

We also think that popular culture provides us with an important insight into how Malaysians live, express themselves, intersect and interact with each other, and how we find ways to make sense of what it means to be Malaysian. And because we believe that in a vibrant democracy, artistic expressions are just as legitimate as an official memorandum, we also aim to foreground counter- and subaltern cultures so that our readers can have a richer understanding of what makes Malaysia what it is. End of Article

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Primary Sidebar

Search

Twitter

My Tweets

Recent Comments

  • Wave33 on The Nut Graph stops publication
  • Adam on The Nut Graph stops publication
  • PSTan on The Nut Graph stops publication
  • PSTan on The Nut Graph stops publication
  • Andre Lai on The Nut Graph stops publication

Recent News

  • The Nut Graph stops publication
  • Nasihat tentang sepupu yang mengganggu perasaan
  • Uncommon Sense with Wong Chin Huat: The Sunni-Shia split and the answer to Muslim unity
  • Why Malaysia needs the national unity bills
  • Challenging government in the digital age: Lessons from Kidex
  • Najib’s failure
  • Babi, anjing, pondan: Jijik orang Islam Malaysia
  • Kidex and the law – What the government’s not telling you
  • Beyond Dyana Sofya
  • Uncommon Sense with Wong Chin Huat: Does Malaysia need hate speech laws?

Tags

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Anwar Ibrahim Barisan Nasional BN Bukit Selambau by-election dap Deborah Loh Ding Jo-Ann Election Commission elections Found in Malaysia Found in Quotation Gan Pei Ling government high court Hishammuddin Hussein ISA islam Jacqueline Ann Surin Khairy Jamaluddin KW Mak Lim Guan Eng Malaysia MCA Menteri Besar MP Watch Muhyiddin Yassin muslim Najib Razak Pakatan Rakyat Parliament Parti Keadilan Rakyat pas Penang Perak PKR police politics prime minister Selangor Shanon Shah Umno Wong Chin Huat Zedeck Siew

Footer

  • About The Nut Graph
  • Who Are We?
  • Our Contributors
  • Past Contributors
  • Guest Contributors
  • Editorial Policy
  • Comments & Columns
  • Copyright Policy
  • Web Accessibility Policy
  • Privacy Policy
The Nut Graph

© 2023 The Nut Graph