Print Journalism

102
Unit-1
History of Print Journalism
The evolution of Newspapers in India is with the introduction of ‘Bengal Gazette’ started
by James Augustus Hicky in 1780 from Calcutta as a weekly two sheet paper. This
Newspaper paved the way for Indian freedom struggle and the fight against the social
evils in India by the way of revolutionary and enlightening writings.
Very soon other Newspapers such as Calcutta Chronicle, Madras Courier, and Bombay
Herald, Bombay Courier, Bombay Gazette entered into the scene and the Newspapers in
Hindi and other regional languages also started flourishing in the various parts of the
nation. Bengal was the birth place of Journalism in India and the language press.
‘Samachar Darpan’ was the first Indian language Newspaper which was a Bengali
weekly newspaper introduced in 1818 and the first periodical of India in Indian language
was ‘Dig Darshan’ in Bangla language started in the same year. ‘Eenadu’ was a Telugu
daily which was started by Ramoji Rao, first Gujarati Newspaper was ‘Bombay
Samachar’ which still exists and is considered as the oldest living Indian Newspaper of
India.
The prime motives to start the Newspapers in Indian languages were to promote the
feeling of patriotism and to encourage social reforms also because the society was
occupied with lots of prejudices, orthodoxies and social evils like sati pratha, child
marriage, caste discrimination, idol worship, animal sacrifice and other narrow beliefs.
Raja Rammohan Roy, who is considered as the founder of revolutionary Indian Press,
recognized the power of Newspapers and used it as a vehicle for propagating his liberal
ideas and eradicating the social evils prevailing in the Indian society. He introduced
‘Sambad Kaumudi’ in Bengali in 1821 and published the articles promoting women
education, social betterment and awakening and development of scientific outlook. His
other publications include ‘Mirat-ul-Akhbar’ in Persian and ‘Brahmanical Magazine’ in
English.

At that time, education system entered in the country through British contacts and many
societies and missions like Brahma Samaj, Ramkrishna Mission, AryaSamaj, and
Theosophical Society came into the scenario with the feeling of social development and
nationalism. The era of Hindi Journalism started in 1826 with ‘UddantaMartanda’ from
Kolkata, then Bangdoot, Banaras Akhbaar, Gyandeepak, MalwaAkhbaar, Gwalior
Gazette, Payam-e-Azadi, SamacharSudhaVarshan, Lokhit, Marwaad Gazette, Jodhpur
Government Gazette etc. were introduced with the mission of independence, self-rule and
social reforms.

1860’s witnessed a boom in the Indian Language Press in the country. Several
Newspapers made their appearance in this period. Also many English Newspapers which
evolved at that time are flourishing even today like The Times of India (1861), The
Pioneer (1861), The Statesman (1875) and The Hindu (1878).
Number of acts and restrictions like The Vernacular Press Act, Gagging Act etc tried to
overrule the power of Print Media in India but the then social reformers and freedom
fighters like Mahatma Gandhi, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Aurbindo Ghosh, Annie Beasant,
Surendra Nath Banerjee, Lala Lajpat Rai, Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi and many others
recognized the power of pen and used it as a tool for propagating the feeling of
nationalism and brotherhood. They also used their Newspapers to remove the socioreligious evils of
the society. Thus, the history of Journalism in India is inseparably
linked with the development of social awareness, national consciousness and the progress
of freedom movement. Also the Newspapers like Kesari, Pratap, Maratha, Yugantar, Sudarshan,
Samalochak, Maryada, Swadesh, Abhyudaya, Karmaveer, Karmyogi, Gadar etc. brought revolution
in the Hindi Journalism of India.

Mahatma Gandhi, who was considered as the greatest Journalist of his times used his
Newspapers- Indian Opinion, Young India, Navjivan, Satyagrah and Harijan, to expose the flaws of
the society and to stimulate social awakening. He advocated that a Newspaper is a powerful tool in
bringing positive changes in the society but at the same time, he feared that this power can be
misused for commercial interests as many publications started looking for the revenue attached to the
advertisements. That is why, he once said that a Newspaper is a great power but just as an unchained
torrent of water brings devastations, similarly an uncontrolled pen can also fetch destruction for the
entire humanity. Thus, he suggested that the sole aim of Journalism should be service to the people.

Even the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, called the Newspapers a tool of
national reconstruction and social reformation. He supported the liberty of Press and
considered it as a vital part of democracy. Thus the Print Media nurtured during the
postindependence era too. The Press thus developed into a “National Institution” by playing
an important role in the struggle for independence and in shaping and moulding the
Public Opinion. In the Independent India, it became a medium of inter-communication
between the Government and the Public.

Later with the increase in the literacy rate, boom in the printing technology and advent of
hard core advertising trends, the Print Media industry thrived. In 1950s around 214
Newspapers were there, the number of which increased to 2,856 in 1990s, 35,595 by
1993, and the number reached to 46,655 in 1999 with 5,157 daily newspapers.

Also, the rise in the circulation of regional papers was seen as the people were first
educated in their mother language and even the advertisers saw great possibility in the
regional paper market. The main regional languages in which Newspapers published at
that time were Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Urdu and Gujarati.
In the 1990s, Indian Newspapers experienced a major make over in order to compete
with the attractive and colorful magazines and Satellite Television channels which began the era of
commercialization and information revolution. The new face of Newspapers
was more attractive and colorful features related to latest trends, lifestyle and
entertainment were added.
Thus, the Print Media has always been serving the people of India. The main objectives
of Print Media are to understand the popular feeling and give expression to it, then to
arouse among the people certain desired sentiments and thirdly fearlessly expose popular
defects. Newspapers are archives, objects of records. They can be referred to, checked
again and leave a long impact. Also, the Newspapers or print mediums have power to
describe the events at greater length whereas other mediums have limitations.

An important fact related to Indian Print Media industry is that most of the Newspapers
and Publications are owned by private firms and thus, they are free from government
control and rather keeping a check on the policies and actions of government to ensure a
healthy democracy. Thus, the Newspapers have been a major player since independence
in the welfare, betterment and development of the society at regional as well as national
level. Despite of the advent of several media conglomerates and commercialization of
media industry, Newspapers are playing a vital role in the daily life of people of India
and it is contributing to a democratic deficit in the world’s largest democracy.

Current Size
Indian Print Media is the largest Print Media and Newspaper market in the world with
over 100 million copies sold each day and is over 230 years old. Indian printing houses
print maximum Daily Newspapers than any other country in Asia. The total number of
registered publications as per the Registrar of Newspaper for India by 31st March, 2012
is more than 80,000 and the circulation of Newspapers is 37, 38, 39,764. Today the highest number
of Newspapers and periodicals are published in Hindi with 8,649. Hindu
is the largest circulated Daily Newspaper with the circulation of 16,06,711 and the largest
multi-edition daily is The Times of India, English with 14 editions and circulation of
45,75,895 and second largest multi-edition daily is Dainik Bhaskar with 29 editions and
circulation of 30,89,013.

Journalism
Journalism is both an art and a profession which records events and opinions and seeks to interpret and
mould them for the benefit of the educated public. Journalism is anything that contributes in some way in
gathering, selection, processing of news and current affairs for the press, radio, television, film, cable,
internet, etc. It is a discipline of collecting, analyzing, verifying and presenting news regarding current
events, trends, issues and people. Those who practice journalism are known as journalists. Journalism is
defined by Denis McQuail as paid writing for public media with reference to actual and ongoing events of
public relevance.

Principles and functions of journalism

The central purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information
they need to function in a free society. This purpose also involves other requirements such as
being
entertaining, serving as watchdog and offering voice to the voiceless.
Journalism has developed nine core ideals to meet the task.
1. Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth: Journalism does not pursue truth in an
absolute or philosophical sense, but it can and must pursue it in a practical sense. This
journalistic truth is a process that begins with the professional discipline of assembling
and verifying facts.
2. Its first loyalty is to citizens: Journalists must maintain loyalty to citizens and the
larger public interest above any other if they are to provide the news without fear or
favour. This commitment to citizens first is the basis of news organizations credibility;
to tell audience that news coverage is not slanted for friends or advertisers.
Commitment to citizens also means journalism should present a representative picture
of all constituent groups in society.
3. Its essence is disciplines of verification: Journalists rely on professional discipline
for verifying information. It called for a consistent method of testing information- a
transparent approach to evidence- precisely so that personal and cultural biases would
not undermine the accuracy of their work.
4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover:
Independence is an underlying requirement of journalism, a cornerstone of its
reliability. Independence of spirit and mind rather than neutrality is the principle
journalists must keep in focus.
5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power: Journalism has an unusual
capacity to serve as watchdog over those whose power and position most affects
citizens. As journalists, one has an obligation to protect this watchdog freedom by not
demeaning it in frivolous use or exploiting it for commercial gains.
6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise: The news media
are the common carriers of public discussion. This discussion serves society best when
it is informed by facts rather than prejudice and supposition. Accuracy and truthfulness
requires that as framers of the public discussion journalists do not neglect the points of
common ground where problem solving occurs.

7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant: Journalism is

storytelling with a purpose. It must strive to make the significant interesting and
relevant. The effectiveness of a piece of journalism is measured both by how much a
work engages its audience and enlightens it. This means journalists must continually
ask what information has most value to citizens and in what form.
8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional: Keeping news in
proportion and nor leaving important things out are also cornerstones of truthfulness.
Inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereo typing or being
disproportionately negative all makes it less reliable. It should also include news of all
communities, not just those with attractive demographics.
9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience: Every
journalist must have a personal sense of ethics and responsibility- a moral compass.
Each of them must be willing if fairness and accuracy requires, to voice differences
with colleagues, whether in the newsroom or the executive suite.
Journalism as a profession
Print media journalism
Print media journalism presents various information through newspapers, magazines and
books. Professionals of this stream are – staff correspondents, special correspondents, news
editors,
chief-editors, political commentators, cartoonists, columnists, feature writers, content writers for
magazine etc.
Radio journalism
Radio journalism works for broadcasting news and various information through an important
medium of mass communication among workers and householders. Radio journalists are well
versed
with the operations of sound recording equipments, microphones and public address systems.
They
must also be efficient in digital data recording, operations of the net, audio systems and
computers
TV journalism
TV is an audiovisual communication tool. It requires the attention of two senses of the
targeted individual- audio and visual. Hence the TV journalist has not only to give pleasing
music,
voice, or other audio signals to the targeted audience but also has to mesmerize them with the
help of
his personality, mannerism, video footage and appropriate colour combinations.
Cyber journalism
Internet is a source of all kind of information. Internet journalist is a person who creates
messages to be displayed on the web sites that are to be read, viewed or listened to by a very
large
audience. Professionals of this new stream are web masters; multimedia specialists, HTML and
XHTML programmers, Java specialists and other professionals who create and modify
advertisements for the NET. They also create web sites which are mass communication tools.

Role and responsibilities of a journalist

The main duty of a journalist is to act as an interpreter of the world around. The journalist
observes the events, transmits facts about the event and act as an interpreter of these events and
happenings.
A journalist performs the following roles:
1. Make people aware of the contemporary world.
2. Inform and educate the audience.
3. Promote art and culture.
4. Entertain the mass.
5. Help people in decision making.
6. Make people sensitive to burning issues.
7. Instill good moral values.
8. Make people aware of their rights.
9. Help people in comparative study of past and present and in predicting future.
The MacBride report spells out journalistic responsibilities as:
1. Contractual responsibility in relation to their media and their internal organization.
2. A social responsibility entailing obligations towards public opinion and society as a
whole
3. Responsibility or liability deriving from the obligation to comply with the law.
4. Responsibility towards the international community relating to respect for human
values.
Ethics of journalism
It includes principles of ethics and of good practice to address the specific challenges faced by
professional journalists. The basic codes and canons commonly appear in statements drafted by
professional journalism association and individual print, broadcast and online news
organizations.
While various existing codes have some differences, most share common elements including
the principles of- truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness and public
accountabilityas
these apply to the acquisition of newsworthy information and its subsequent reportage to the
public.
Professional and ethical standards for journalists
1. As the press is a primary instrument in the creation of public opinion, journalist should
regard their calling as a trust and be eager to serve and guard their public interest.
2. In discharge of their duties, journalists should attach due value to fundamental human
and social rights and shall hold good faith and fair play in news reports and comments
as essential professional obligations.
3. Journalists should observe special restraint in reports and comments dealing with
tensions, likely to lead, or leading to civil disorder.

4. Journalists should endeavour to ensure that information dissemination is factually

accurate
5. Responsibility shall be assumed for all information and comments published. If
responsibility is disclaimed, this will be explicitly stated.
6. Confidences shall always be respected. Professional secrecy must be preserved.
7. Any report found to be inaccurate and any comment on inaccurate reports shall be
voluntarily rectified
8. Journalists shall not exploit their status for non-journalistic purposes.
9. Journalists shall not allow personal interest to influence professional conduct.
10. Journalists shall not accept or demand bribe to give or delay publicity to news or
comments.
11. Freedom in the honest collection and publication of news and facts and the rights of
their comments and criticism and principles which every journalists should always
defend
12. Journalists shall be conscious of their obligation to their fellows in the profession and
shall not seek to deprive fellow journalists of their livelihood by unfair means.
13. The carrying on of personal controversies in the press in which no public interest is
involved shall be regarded as derogatory to the dignity of the profession
14. It is unprofessional to give currency to rumours or loose talk affecting the private life
of individuals.
15. The press shall refrain from publishing matters likely to encourage vice and crime.

Journalism as a Fourth Estate

What is the role of the free press in strengthening democracy, good governance, and
human development? Liberal theorists have long argued that the existence of a unfettered and
independent press within each nation is essential in the process of democratization, by
contributing towards the right of freedom of expression, thought and conscience, strengthening
the responsiveness and accountability of governments to all citizens, and providing a pluralist
platform and channel of political expression for a multiplicity of groups and interests. The
guarantee of freedom of expression and information is recognized as a basic human right in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN in 1948, the European Convention
on Human Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights, and the African Charter on
Human and Peoples' Rights. In particular, Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of
Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right
includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." The positive relationship
between the growth of the free press and the process of democratization is thought to be
reciprocal. The core claim is that, in the first stage, the initial transition from autocracy opens up
the state control of the media to private ownership, diffuses access, and reduces official
censorship and government control of information. The public thereby receives greater exposure
to a wider variety of cultural products and ideas through access to multiple radio and TV
channels, as well as the diffusion of new technologies such as the Internet and mobile telephones.
Once media liberalization has commenced, in the second stage democratic consolidation is
strengthened where journalists in independent newspapers, radio and television stations facilitate
greater transparency and accountability in governance, by serving in their watch-dog roles to
deter corruption and malfeasance, as well as providing a civic forum for multiple voices in public
debate, and highlighting problems to inform the policy agenda.
Through this process, numerous observers have emphasized that a free press is valuable for
democracy, for good governance, and for human development. This perspective is exemplified
by Amartya Sen’s famous argument that in independent and democratic countries, the free press
encourages government responsiveness to public concerns, by highlighting cases of famine and
natural disasters. “...in the terrible history of famines in the world, no substantial famine has ever
occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press.” The
independent media, Sen suggests, enhances the voice of poor people and generates more
informed choices about economic needs and priorities. James D. Wolfensen echoed these
sentiments when he was the president of the World Bank: “A free press is not a luxury. A free
press is at the absolute core of equitable development, because if you cannot enfranchise poor
people, if they do not have a right to expression, if there is no searchlight on
corruption and inequitable practices, you cannot build the public consensus needed to bring
about change.” Systematic evidence supporting these claims has been reported by Besley and
Burgess, who found that Indian state governments proved more responsive to external shocks,
such as falls in crop production and crop flood damage, by expanding local public relief in places
where newspaper circulation was higher and electoral accountability greater. Similarly, greater
transparency and more open information is thought to be particularly important for stamping out
malfeasance and misappropriations by public officials, for example, economic studies have
reported that places with widespread newspaper circulation, and the existence of Freedom of
Information laws, have less corruption. Many case studies also emphasize the vital role of the
mass media in transitions from autocracy, for instance in Georgia’s ‘Rose’ revolution. Likewise
in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine, McFaul argues that the presence of the independent media was
one of the key components of successful transitions from post-communist states, for instance
their role in highlighting news about rigged votes and publicizing popular protests and dissent
expressed against the authorities, encouraging opposition movements onto the streets. More
liberal media landscapes are therefore widely regarded among popular commentators, donor
agencies, and the international community as strengthening democratization processes. But what
systematic comparative evidence supports these claims? Much existing research has focused on
assessing the impact of media structures and access, such as the diffusion of independent
newspapers or the existence of private television channels or radio stations, rather than
comparing press freedom per se. Cross-national work on democratic institutions has usually
emphasized the classic constitutional arrangements analyzed in earlier chapters, including the
impact of electoral and party systems, federal or unitary states, and parliamentary or presidential
executives, while neglecting to analyze comparable evidence about the institutional role and
function of the news media as an integral part of power-sharing arrangements. Yet many
constitutions contain general provisions respecting rights to freedom of speech and the press, and
more detailed Freedom of Information and data protection laws implementing these rights have
been passed in more than six dozen nations worldwide, often a fairly recent development, as part
of the anti-corruption drive to promote transparency and open government. Many other statutory
provisions can limit or promote media independence, including requirements for registration or
licenses for journalists or newspapers, broadcasting regulations and the degree of public and
commercial ownership of radio and television stations, as well as laws governing broadcasting
contents, concentration of ownership, official secrecy, intellectual property, libel, and taxation.
Levels of access to radio, television, newspapers and the internet also vary substantially around
the globe, affecting patterns of information reach and availability.

To explore the role of the independent media in the democratization process, the first section
outlines the analytical framework and summarizes the previous research on this topic. The
second outlines the comparative evidence where Freedom House provides the principle measure
of Press Freedom, with annual data available from 1992 to 2007. This indicator is strongly
correlated with the independently developed Press Freedom Index created by Reporter’s Without
Borders, increasing confidence in the reliability of the Freedom House measure. The next
sections describe the distribution and trends in press freedom. The analytical models using
timeseries cross-national regression present the results after controlling for many factors
commonly associated with processes of democratization, as observed earlier, including levels of
economic development, colonial origins, population size, and regional effects, as well as other
institutional arrangements. Two paired cases drawn from Eurasia are then compared, in Ukraine
and Uzbekistan, to illustrate the underlying processes at work and the role of the media in regime
change. The study confirms that, even with prior controls, freedom of the press contributes
towards democratic governance, with important consequences as another check and balance on
government.

Citizen Journalism

Mainstream media like television, radio and newspapers used to be the only sources of
news in the pre Internet era. That situation is changing. News websites hosted by the
major media companies are now competing sources of news. These exist alongside
alternative news sources on the Internet like websites featuring user generated content,
blogs, social networking sites and wikis which are gaining momentum. Like mainstream
media, these sites offer a wide variety of news. The difference is that the news articles are
contributed by audiences or users. The stories range from original reporting of local
events and disasters, to commentary on entertainment and news stories appearing in
mainstream media elsewhere.

Citizen participation in the media, or contribution of user generated content or ‘citizen

journalism’ as it’s commonly known is a growing phenomenon in some ways. Its benefits
are that audiences witnessing incidents can post eyewitness accounts on the Internet as
soon as they happen or send a report and photos to the media. Citizen journalism also
dwells a lot on analysis and debate of issues and stories appearing in mainstream media.
Unlike journalists in the mainstream media, citizen journalists can be anonymous
contributors with no journalism training.

1 The phenomenon of citizen journalism: benefits, risks and debates in

communications and media research.
Media professionals and debates in media .research acknowledge the benefit of citizen
journalism as potential sources of up-to date news. The debates are widely contested
when it comes to the disadvantages and risks. Some say the risks can be mitigated while
others say that given the instantaneous nature of the Internet and its potential global
reach, anyone with a hidden agenda can potentially hide behind the anonymity of the
Internet and post a false story or opinion story hidden as fact and potentially spread it
globally in minutes.

1.1 The beginnings of citizen journalism

When the world’s first website http://info.cern.ch/ was launched in 1991 by physicist Tim
Berners-Lee, it offered no audience interactivity. As the number of websites increased
and as the Internet grew over the years, new features on websites made it easier for audiences to
interact with other audiences or with website publishers. Real change did
not come until 2004 when the newly introduced Web 2.0 platform introduced a lot of the
features that enabled consumers or ordinary people to publish their own websites or
weblogs, or feed content into the mainstream media. WordPress and BlogSpot are
examples of such platforms.
“Some of the characteristics often noted as descriptive of Web 2.0 include
blogging, RSS-generated syndication, social networking sites like YouTube,
Facebook, mash-ups, wikis like Wikipaedia and other collaborative applications
and interactive encyclopedias and dictionaries….” 1
The combination of Web 2.0 features and digital technologies, like digital cameras or
video camcorders and camera enabled mobile phones made it easy to gather and capture
video and photographs and post them online.
In some ways this slowly marked the beginnings of audience participation in online
media. The phenomenon of contributing content to the media seems to be growing and
also defining itself. Commonly referred to as ‘citizen journalism’, the phenomenon is also
known by other terms such as ‘amateur journalism’ or ‘accidental journalists’ or ‘user
generated content’.
1.2 The growth of citizen journalism

Audiences are increasingly creating content and publishing it themselves or contributing

it to the media rather than just consuming it, as has almost always been the case. Debates
on the impact of this trend on mainstream media are widely contested. Some see these
audiences playing a larger role in providing news content to the media, perhaps not along
the lines of the Korean site OhMyNews which publishes content mostly from citizen
journalists, but by being the eyes and ears of the media and providing instant accounts
like photographs and videos of incidents, in other words hard news ‘reporting’.
Hard news reporting requires an on-the-ground presence. The Indonesian Boxing Day
Tsunami, the July 2005 London Bombing and Virginia Tech disasters are cited in many
research studies as examples where audiences on the ground took photographs, text and
voice messages and eye witness accounts which told the ‘story’ in ways that almost
eclipsed the traditional way of reporting news. Detractors however criticize citizen journalism
and say there is high potential for false news being published online One other major focus of
citizen journalism is opinion. There are now many forums and blogs where audiences discuss,
analyze and do ‘post mortems’ of stories appearing in the media, or discuss politics, the ins-and-
outs of government or economic policy or simply express raw personal opinions. Some of them
are random, but others consistently perform these functions and articulate issues in a synthesized
way.
1.3 Definitions of citizen journalists
The term citizen journalist did not exist before the advent of the Internet. Citizen
journalism grew in tandem with the growth of the interactive functions on the Internet.
Although it encompasses many aspects and comes in different forms-blogs, forums,
uploading photographs or videos to the media, citizen journalism has one fundamental
basis. In “Writing for a convergent media”, author Thom Lieb says this one thing is
“contributing journalistic content to the news process” and gives blogging as an example
of one component of citizen journalism.

This description is echoed by the Source Watch- a project of the Centre for Media and
Democracy which describes citizen journalism as individuals "playing an active role in
the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information”
and adds that “citizen journalism is slowly being looked upon as a form of rightful
democratic ways of giving honest news, articles, etc, directly by citizens of the world
from anywhere.”

New York University Journalism Professor and citizen journalism advocate Jay Rosen
defines citizen journalism by explaining why it is happening in the first place “Citizen journalists
are ‘the people formerly known as the audience’, are those who were on the receiving end of a
media system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees and a few firms
competing to speak very loudly while the rest of the population listened in isolation from one
another— and who today are not in a situation like that at all”
“Think of passengers on your ship who got a boat of their own. The writing readers. The viewers
who picked up a camera. The formerly atomized listeners who with modest effort can connect
with each other and gain the means to speak— to the world, as it were”

1.4 Benefits of citizen journalism

The sheer magnitude of the impact of a number of natural disasters (such as the 2004
Boxing Day tsunamis in southeast Asia) that occurred in the last few years would have
been very challenging for any media organisations to cover, no matter how deep their
pockets are. Coverage of disasters is mostly a race against time. It’s a fact that journalists
are not always present when incidents or disasters strike. Their job is to piece together the
occurrences using images, videos, eye witness accounts. As Dan Gillmor says citizen
journalists can help “capture the moment, not the aftermath” Some of the people who witnessed
or survived the earthquake and tsunami which hit the Indonesian coast on December 26, 2004
used cam-coders, digital cameras and mobile phones to capture the unfolding event and damage
and sent them in to media organisations like the BBC, MSNBC and CNN and many other news
outlets and also published them on blogs.

Similarly during the London Bombing and Virginia Tech shooting, eyewitnesses captured images
on their cellphones and cameras and sent them in to the media or published them together with
personal accounts on blogs and websites. Without these images and accounts, it’s highly unlikely
if conventional news coverage using reporters would have brought to light the full scale of the
damage. In all these instances, the imagery and material from these people added a new
dimension to the coverage of the disasters. Commenting on www.poynter.org, journalist Steve
Outing said that the earthquake and tsunamis in South Asia and their aftermath represented “a
tipping point in so-called ‘citizen journalism’… ”, a fact which is now common knowledge and
alluded to by many in the media and in communication research. “Digital technologies -- the
Web, e-mail, blogs, digital cameras, camera phones -- have evolved to the point where people on
the scene share with professional journalists the ability to reach a wide audience, to tell and show
the world what they saw and experienced. Where once disaster eyewitness photographs and
videos turned up for widespread viewing only on news programs and in newspapers, today
through e-mail, blogs, and a blogging infrastructure that spreads amateur news
quickly and efficiently, they often find large audiences without the help or need of
mainstream news outlets”

The most notable citizen journalism success story is South Korea’s online news OhMyNews
founded in 2000 with the motto "Every Citizen is a Reporter". The newspaper’s open source
business model is to accept, edit and publish articles from its readers. Whilst the OhMyNews
model has done well in South Korea, OhMyNews Japan did not succeed and was forced to close
down in 2007.

Penny Press
The Penny Press was the term used to describe the revolutionary business tactic of producing
newspapers which sold for one cent. The Penny Press is generally considered to have started in
1833, when Benjamin Day founded The Sun, a New York City newspaper.

Day, who had been working in the printing business, started a newspaper as a way to salvage his
business. He had nearly gone broke after losing much of his business during a local financial
panic caused by the cholera epidemic of 1832.

His idea of selling a newspaper for a penny seemed radical at a time when most newspapers sold
for six cents. And though Day merely saw it as a business strategy to salvage his business, his
analysis touched upon a class divide in society. Newspapers that sold for six cents were simply
beyond the reach of many readers.
Day reasoned that many working class people were literate, but were not newspaper customers
simply because no one had published a newspaper targeted to them. By launching The Sun, Day
was taking a gamble. But it proved successful.
Besides making the newspaper very affordable, Day instituted another innovation, the newsboy.
By hiring boys to hawk copies on street corners, The Sun was both affordable and readily
available. People wouldn’t even have to step into a shop to buy it.
Influence of The Sun

Day did not have much of a background in journalism, and The Sun had fairly loose journalistic
standards.
In 1834 it published the notorious “Moon Hoax,” in which the newspaper claimed scientists had
found life on the moon.
The story was outrageous and proven to be utterly false. But instead of the ridiculous stunt
discrediting The Sun, the reading public found it entertaining. The Sun became even more
popular.

The success of The Sun encouraged James Gordon Bennett, who had serious journalistic
experience, to found The Herald, another newspaper priced at one cent. Bennett was quickly
successful and before long he could charge two cents for a single copy of his paper.
Subsequent newspapers, including the New York Tribune of Horace Greeley and the New York
Times of Henry J. Raymond, also began publication as penny papers. But by the time of the Civil
War, the standard price of a New York City newspaper was two cents.
By marketing a newspaper to the widest possible public, Benjamin Day inadvertently kicked off
a very competitive era in American journalism. As new immigrants came to America, the penny
press provided very economical reading material. And the case could be made that by coming up
with a scheme to save his failing printing business, Benjamin Day had a lasting impact on
American society.

Yellow Journalism

Yellow Journalism is a term first coined during the famous newspaper wars between William
Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer II.

Pulitzer's paper the New York World and Hearst's New York Journal changed the content of
newspapers adding more sensationalized stories and increasing the use of drawings and cartoons.

As more cartoons were being published in newspapers, Pulitzer began to publish a cartoon of his
own that he titled "The Yellow Kid" in 1896. The cartoon was created by R.F. Outcault and
became one of many objects fought over between Hearst and Pulitzer during their rivalry. Hearst
later took Outcault and his cartoon from Pulitzer by offering him an outrageous salary. Pulitzer
published another version of the cartoon very similar to "The Yellow Kid" to continue competing
with Hearst.

With so much competition between the newspapers, the news was over-dramatized and altered to
fit story ideas that publishers and editors thought would sell the most papers and stir the most
interest for the public so that news boys could sell more papers on street corners.
They often used the "Yellow Kid" to sensationalize stories and discredit the stories of other
newspapers. The "Yellow Kid" was also used to sway public opinion on important issues such as
the Spanish-American war. Newspapers of the era did not practice the objectivity that
newspapers today strive for.

Many historians believe that Hearst in particular played a major role in the American
involvement with Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Hearst saw the war as a prime
opportunity to boost his newspaper sales. He was the first newspaper to station a team of
reporters in Cuba to monitor the events happening there. Hearst published articles of brutality,
cruelty and inadequate care to sway public opinion regarding America's involvement in the war.

Two reporters, Richard Harding Davis and Frederick Remington, were the highest paid reporters
for Hearst stationed in Cuba. When Remington sent a telegram telling Hearst that there was not
much going on there, Hearst replied with his famous telegram,"You furnish the pictures and I'll
furnish the war." This is just a small example of Hearst sensationalized practices(Book # 1 and 2)
Hearst also became very involved with the war itself, after much public swaying through the
dramatized stories of his paper, he eventually pushed the President to sign a bill officially
entering America into the war.
Ironically, the term "Yellow Journalism" is partly credited to Pulitzer's involvement in the
conflict with Hearst. As we are all aware, Pulitzer is now famous for his awards of outstanding
journalistic achievement with the Pulitzer Prize.

News

What makes news? John Bogart has given this comment that became synonymous with news .
When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog,
that is news. Though this may seem true, sometimes, when a dog bites a man that can also
become news. Suppose a dog bites a famous filmstar, it definitely makes big news. It is said that
the letters in the word “NEWS” is derived from the four directions as indicated below: N orth E
ast W est S outh This shows that news can come from anywhere. News is the report of a current
event, something that was not known, information of recent events and happenings.

DEFINITION OF NEWS
News is a report of a current event. It is information about something that has just happened or
will happen soon. News is a report about recent happenings in a newspaper, television , radio or
internet. News is something that is not known earlier. From all these, we can safely define news
as a development that has happened in the past 24 hours which was not known outside and which
is of wide interest to the people and that which generates curiosity among listeners. Let us
consider a few examples. You have heard a news broadcast on the radio .Twenty people died in a
train accident. You don’t consider it as news concerning you. Lots of accidents happen in various
places every day. But after some time you hear that passengers in the compartment which met
with the accident are from your village. Now you become more alert. The news becomes
important for you. You are anxious to know the condition of passengers. Are they safe? Is anyone
hurt or hospitalised?

You are in no way connected with the presentation of the central budget in parliament. But when
the Finance Minister, while presenting the budget, announces a hike in the prices of petroleum
products, you suddenly become interested in the news. You want to know how much is the
increase. Will it affect your pocket? How much is the increase for a cooking gas cylinder? The
news becomes quite important for you.

Counting of votes is going on in your constituency. Election to the state assembly is going on. As
the counting progresses, you become eager to know the lead positions. At the end of the
counting, you want to know who has won the seat. So it is news which you wanted to know
without delay.

Difference between a News & Information

In the railway station, you might have noticed the board displaying the train timings. That is not
news. That is information. But information becomes news when news value is added to it. For
example, if a new train time table is issued by the railways replacing the existing one with
changes in train timings, that becomes news.

Similarly, the different slabs of income tax rates is not news. But when the government decides
to increase or lower the rates, it becomes news. You might have seen weather reports in the
newspapers. It gives the day’s temperature or rainfall. It does not make news. It becomes news
when there is a sudden change in weather, or when heavy rains lead to floods or when
continuous absence of rain leads to drought. So information is different from news. News should
give something new to the readers, viewers or listeners.

What makes a News?

It is generally said that if a news report provides answers to six questions, then it is a perfect
news item. These six questions include five Ws and one H. The five Ws are When? Where? What
? Why? and Who?.The H is How? Suppose you hear a news like this. A boy is kidnapped while
coming back from the school. Naturally the first question that arises in your mind will be when it
had happened and where? Then you are keen to know what the full story of the incident was .
Then you ask the question, why has it happened? Also you want to know about the kidnappers .
Who were they? And finally the news becomes complete only when you get from the news how
the kidnapping happened. Unless a news item satisfies all these six questions of the reader or
listener, the news is incomplete.

News Values
Journalists are the best judges about what is news and what is not. They take this decision based
on certain news values. The following are the salient points to judge the newsworthiness.

Timeliness: News is something new. So timeliness is a great factor in deciding news. An incident
that happened one month back will not make news for today’s newspaper. Also timeliness varies
from publication to publication. For a newspaper, events that had happened on the previous day
is news. But for a weekly, events of the previous one week can make news. For a 24-hour
television news channel, every second is a deadline. They can break the news anytime. So their
timeliness is different from that of a newspaper.

Impact : Impact of an event decides its newsworthiness. When the tsunami waves struck several
parts of the world, thousands of people were affected. It became major news for the whole world.
But if a cyclone kills 20 people in Bangladesh, it may not have any impact on other parts of the
world. When dengue fever affects 100 people in Delhi, it makes news not only in Delhi but in
other states also because the impact is more wide and people become more alert about the news.

Proximity : “Bird flu spreading and hundreds of chicken dying in England”. Does it make news
for you? You may read it but do not worry about it. But bird flu spreading in West Bengal will
make you alert. This is because it is in your proximity. A plane crash in Peru will not be big news
in India, but if an aircraft crashes in India, it will be headlines everywhere. So proximity decides
the news.

Controversy: - People like controversies. Anything that is connected with conflicts, arguments,
charges and counter-charges, fights and tension becomes news. All of you might have heard of
Kargil. It was a conflict between India and Pakistan. It became great news all over the world.
Many of you may remember the controversy about the Indian and Australian cricket teams. It
was news for all the media. When terrorists crashed their plane into the World Trade Centre in
New York it was lead news everywhere.

Prominence: If a prominent person is involved in any event, it becomes news. If an ordinary

person’s car breaks down and he has to wait for ten minutes on the roadside till the vehicle is
repaired it makes no news. But if the Prime Minister’s car breaks down and his motorcade has to
stop for five minutes it becomes news. A person visiting Rajghat and paying homage to Gandhiji
may not be a news item, but when the US President visits Rajghat it becomes news.

Currency: News is about current events. Suppose the Olympic Games are held in India. It
becomes news because everybody is interested in it. Likewise when SAARC leaders meet in
Delhi to formulate future action plans, it becomes the current news. Similarly, if extreme cold
weather continues for a week and fog disrupts air, rail and road traffic, it becomes news.

Oddity : Unusual things makes news. Extraordinary and unexpected events generate public
interest. You might have seen box items in newspapers about such happenings . A man pulls a car
by his hair, a woman gives birth to triplets, a singer enters the Guinness Book by singing non-
stop for 48 hours, the painting of a famous artist is auctioned for a very expensive price . All
such odd stories evoke much public interest.

Emotion: Stories of human interest make good news items. For eg. the police rescue a school
boy kidnapped by mischief makers after a search of two weeks. The parents meet the boy in an
emotionally surcharged atmosphere. The story of this meeting with a photograph makes a good
human interest report. Doctors advise a girl in Pakistan to undergo a heart surgery urgently. But
her parents cannot afford the expenses. The Rotary Club of Delhi east offers help through their
scheme of ‘Gift of Life’. The girl comes to India and undergoes surgery successfully. While
going back she and her overwhelmed parents narrate their experiences in India. This makes a
good human interest story.

Usefulness: Sometimes news items help the public in various ways. You must have noticed that
weather forecasters warn fishermen not to go to the sea for fishing on certain days because of
rough weather. Newspapers gives the phone numbers of police stations, hospitals, ambulance
services etc. to help people. You might have seen in newspapers, requests from relatives to
donors of blood for a patient in a critical condition. Newspapers also raise funds from the public
to help victims of disasters and natural calamities, like tsunami and earthquake.

Educational value: News has also an educational value. In almost all newspapers, you can find
columns about educational and job opportunities. These guide you about different educational
courses, career options available, opportunities for higher studies etc. These news items help you
become more knowledgeable.

Hard News and Soft News

News stories are basically divided into two types: hard news and soft news. Hard new generally
refers to up-to-the-minute news and events that are reported immediately, while soft news is
background information or human-interest stories.
Politics, war, economics and crime used to be considered hard news, while arts, entertainment
and lifestyles were considered soft news.

But increasingly, the lines are beginning to blur. Is a story about the private life of a politician
“politics” or “entertainment”? Is an article about the importance of investing early for retirement
a “business” story or a “lifestyle” story? Judging solely on subject matter, it can be difficult to
tell.
One difference between hard and soft news is the tone of presentation. A hard news story takes a
factual approach: What happened? Who was involved? Where and when did it happen? Why?

A soft news story tries instead to entertain or advise the reader. You may have come across
newspaper or TV stories that promise “news you can use.” Examples might be tips on how to
stretch properly before exercising, or what to look for when buying a new computer.

Knowing the difference between hard and soft news helps you develop a sense of how news is
covered, and what sorts of stories different news media tend to publish or broadcast. This can be
important when you want to write articles or influence the media yourself.

What is a Feature?

Features are not meant to deliver the news firsthand. They do contain elements of news, but
their main function is to humanize, to add colour, to educate, to entertain, to illuminate. They
often recap major news that was reported in a previous news cycle.
Features often:

-Profile people who make the news

-Explain events that move or shape the news
-Analyze what is happening in the world, nation or community
-Teach an audience how to do something
-Suggest better ways to live
-Examine trends
-Entertain.

Types of features

Personality profiles: A personality profile is written to bring an audience closer to a

person in or out of the news. Interviews and observations, as well as creative writing, are
used to paint a vivid picture of the person. The CBC’s recent profile of Pierre Elliot
Trudeau is a classic example of the genre and makes use of archival film footage,
interviews, testimonials, and fair degree of editorializing by the voice-over commentary.
 Human interest stories: A human interest story is written to show a subject’s oddity or
its practical, emotional, or entertainment value.
Trend stories: A trend story examines people, things or organizations that are having an
impact on society. Trend stories are popular because people are excited to read or hear
about the latest fads.
In-depth stories: Through extensive research and interviews, in-depth stories provide a
detailed account well beyond a basic news story or feature.
Backgrounders: A backgrounder--also called an analysis adds meaning to current issues
in the news by explaining them further. These articles bring an audience up-to-date,
explaining how this country, this organization, this person happens to be where it is now.

WRITING AND ORGANIZING FEATURE STORIES

Feature writers seldom use the inverted-pyramid form. Instead, they may write a
chronology that builds to a climax at the end, a narrative, a first-person article about one
of their own experiences or a combination of these. Their stories are held together by a
thread, and they often end where the lead started, with a single person or event. Here are
the steps typically followed in organizing a feature story:
Choose the theme. The theme is similar to the thesis of a scholarly paper and provides
unity and coherence to the piece. It should not be too broad or too narrow. Several factors
come into play when choosing a theme: Has the story been done before? Is the story of
interest to the audience? Does the story have holding power (emotional appeal)? What
makes the story worthy of being reported? The theme answers the question, "So what?"
Write a lead that invites an audience into the story. A summary may not be the best
lead for a feature. A lead block of one or two paragraphs often begins a feature. Rather
than put the news elements of the story in the lead, the feature writer uses the first two or
three paragraphs to set a mood, to arouse readers, to invite them inside. Then the news
peg or the significance of the story is provided in the third or fourth paragraph, the nut
graph. Because it explains the reason the story is being written, the nut graph--also called
the "so what" graph--is a vital paragraph in every feature. The nut graph should be high in
the story. Do not make readers wait until the 10th or 11th paragraph before telling them
what the story is about.
The body provides vital information while it educates, entertains, and emotionally ties an
audience to the subject. The ending will wrap up the story and come back to the lead,
often with a quotation or a surprising climax. Important components of the body of a
feature story are background information, the thread of the story, transition, dialogue, and
voice.

Backgrounders
A backgrounder is an informational document often provided with a press release, press
advisory or as part of a larger media kit. The backgrounder gives the press or other interested
parties a more detailed background of an issue, event, person of interest or launch.
Backgrounders may often be referred to by other terms. For example, they may be combined
with or confused with a "fact sheet." Often used as part of a larger "media kit."

It is provided because other press or media document such as media advisories and press releases
are necessarily kept short and succinct. The backgrounder provides more information to the
journalist or media outlet without compromising the readability or standard format of the media
advisory or press release.

Typical sections of a backgrounder may include history of the organization, event or topic at
hand, applicable statistics or other data, the names, descriptions and qualifications of important
people within the organization, direct statements about why the event or issue is applicable and
worth covering in today's news cycle (and in general), geographical or population data related to
the issue, and a couple of emotive, interesting vignettes that the journalist could use to create
their story.

News Sources & Attributions

News is happening all the time: People are being born or dying, banks are being robbed, roads
are being planned, companies are making profits or losses, storms are destroying homes, courts
are sending people to jail or freeing them, scientists are discovering new drugs. Every minute of
every day something newsworthy is happening somewhere in the world.
Even if you are a journalist working in a small country, something newsworthy is probably
happening in your country at this moment, while you are reading this book. Your job as a
journalist is to get information on those events and present it to your readers or listeners. But you
cannot be everywhere all the time to see those events for yourself. So you need other ways of
getting information on all those hundreds (maybe millions) of events you cannot witness
yourself. When someone or something provides you with information, we call them a source.
Sources of information can be people, letters, books, files, films, tapes - in fact, anything which
journalists use to put news stories together. Sources are very important if you want to report on
events or issues and explain the world to your audience. Journalists try to work as much as
possible from their own observations, but this is often not possible. Some events or issues are
finished before the journalist gets there. Others are like plants which only show their stem and
leaves above the ground - the all-important roots are hidden from sight. Journalists who only
report what they see can miss much of the news unless they have sources to tell them of more
details or other aspects which are out of sight.
Types of sources
Journalists should deal in reliable facts, so it is important that the sources you use for writing
stories can give you accurate information about what happened or what was said. But just as
there are lots of different news events, so there are many different sources of information. Some
of them will give you very accurate information and we call these sources reliable (because we
can rely on what they say). Others are less reliable, but still useful, while some can hardly be
trusted at all. The main way of judging sources of information is on their reliability.

Reporters

One of the most reliable sources of information (although not completely reliable) are other
journalists. They may be your colleagues or reporters from a news agency which supplies your
organisation. If they are well trained, experienced and objective, their reports will usually be
accurate and can be trusted. However, if there are any essential facts missing from their reports,
these will have to be provided. Either they will have to provide them or you will have to find the
missing facts yourself. Mistakes can happen. This is why news organisations should have a
system for checking facts. A reporter's story should be checked by the news editor then the sub-
editor. In small newsrooms, where the reporter may also be the editor or newsreader, the reporter
must be especially careful in checking facts.
There is also the danger that reporters misinterpret what they think they see and then present that
as a fact. This often happens when reporting such things as the size of a crowd. Unable to count
every person in it, they make an estimate, often sharing their guesses with other journalists on the
scene. This is just an estimate and any report which says "there were 40,000 people present"
should be treated with caution, unless the reporter knows the exact number who came through
the gate.
All sources, including reporters, are said to be reliable if we think they can be believed
consistently. If a source is always correct in the information they provide, we will believe them
next time. If they make a mistake, we may doubt what they say. Reliability is built up over time.
Your personal reliability as a journalist is important. If you have a good record for fair and
accurate reporting, you will be believed. If you get a reputation for being careless in your work
or biased in your interpretation, your colleagues, readers or listeners will not be able to rely upon
you. In all cases it is better only to report what you know and make it clear in your report that
everything else is either an estimate, an opinion or the word of someone else, perhaps a witness.
You must always try to give precise facts and attributed opinion. If you cannot do that, you can
use phrases like "it is believed that ..." or "it appears that ...". It is better to do this than to leave
your readers or listeners believing that what you have said is a proven fact.

Primary sources

Often the source is someone at the centre of the event or issue. We call such people primary
sources. It might be a man who fell 1,000 metres from an aircraft and lived to tell the tale; or a
union leader who is leading wage negotiations. They are usually the best sources of information
about their part of what happened. They should be able to give you accurate details and also
supply strong comments.
The fall survivor might say: "I saw the ground rushing up towards me and I kept thinking `So
this is death'." The union leader might warn: "If the employers want blood on their hands, we are
ready to supply it."
Of course, just because a person was present at an event does not mean that they are either
accurate or fair. The fall survivor may have injured his head after landing and so be confused.
The union leader will want to present his side in the best light. It is vital to double-check and
cross-check facts with other sources.
A word of warning here: If any of your sources, however reliable, gives you information which is
defamatory, you can still be taken to court for using it. You are responsible for deciding whether
or not to publish the defamatory material. (See Chapters 69 and 70 on defamation.)

Written sources

Not all primary sources will be spoken. Written reports can make an excellent source of
information for a journalist. They are usually written after a lot of research by the authors, they
have been checked for accuracy and are usually published with official approval.
However, just because information is printed, that does not mean that it is reliable. With
typewriters, computers and modern technology, it is relatively easy to produce printed material.
You must look at who has produced the document. Are they in a position to know enough about
the topic and have access to the reliable facts? Do they have a reputation for reliability?
This is especially important with information on the Internet. Anyone can put information onto
the Internet and unless you know how trustworthy they are you cannot judge the reliability of
what they write.
One advantage of the Internet is that you can quickly cross-check numerous sources, but beware:
a mistake on one site can easily and rapidly be repeated by people writing on other sites. Even
major online references such as Wikipedia rely on volunteers writing the entries and checking
their accuracy and there have been numerous cases of people using entries in Wikipedia and
other online reference works to spread untruths.
In many countries, official transcripts of the proceedings of a court or parliament have some
legal protection from actions for defamation. (See Chapter 67: Privilege and Chapters
69 and 70 on defamation.)

Leaked documents

You may occasionally be given documents which have not been officially released to the press.
They may be given to you by someone in a company or government department who does not
want to be seen giving them to the media. We call these leaked documents.
Documents are often leaked by people who believe that the public should know the contents
(such as an environmental report), but who are unable to reveal it in public themselves, perhaps
because they do not have the authority to do so. In some cases, documents are leaked by a person
to gain an advantage over someone else, perhaps someone who is criticised in the report.
Leaked documents are often excellent sources of news stories because they can contain
information which someone wants to keep secret. This might be a plan to do something which
the public might oppose, such as bulldozing homes to make a new road. It might be a report on
corruption within an organisation which the heads of that organisation do not want to be publicly
known. Just because a government, company or other group does not want information to be
known, that does not mean that you should not report it. If you believe that it is important to
inform your readers or listeners of certain facts, you must do that, even if the information was
given to you unofficially. Of course, like any information, leaked documents must still be
checked for accuracy before they can be used. (See Chapters 39 to 41 on investigative
reporting.)
There are also legal dangers to consider when using leaked documents. They might, for instance,
have been stolen. It is usually an offence to receive stolen property if you think it could have
been stolen, even if it is only a few sheets of paper. As we explain in the chapters on
investigative reporting, photocopying the document then returning it is often a way to overcome
this problem.
Leaked documents could also be covered by copyright, so you could be breaking the law by
quoting directly from them. You are on safer ground in reporting the substance of what was said,
in your own words. (For more details on copyright, see Chapter 63: Introduction to the law.)

Secondary sources

Secondary sources are those people who do not make the news, but who pass it on. The official
police report of an incident or comments by someone's press officer can be called secondary
sources. Secondary sources are not usually as reliable as primary sources.
Most eyewitnesses should be treated as secondary sources for journalists because, although they
are able to tell what they think they have seen, they are often not trained for such work and can
be very inaccurate, without meaning to be.
You have to assess the reliability of secondary sources and if necessary tell your readers or
listeners where the information came from.
For a more detailed discussion on attributing information, see Chapters 8 and 9 on quotes and
attribution.

Tip-offs

Occasionally someone will call with a story tip-off but refuse to give their name. These are said
to be anonymous (meaning "no name"). These are the most dangerous sources of information and
should only be used with extreme caution. Although anonymous tip-offs can provide good story
ideas, they must never be used without a lot of checking. If they are wrong, you will be held
directly responsible unless you have checked what they said with other more reliable sources.
Often people who ring up with a tip-off will tell you their name if asked, but on the promise that
you do not reveal their name to anyone else. You must still cross-check what they say because, of
course, you cannot quote them as your source if there is any dispute about accuracy, for example
if you are taken to court for defamation.

Attribution
When you get information from a source, you normally need to attribute that information to
someone. Attribution means to tell your readers or listeners the name and title of the person you
interviewed or document you got the information from. You do it, for example, through the verb
"to say" or a phrase like "according to ...." (See Chapter 9: Attribution.)
There are three levels of attribution, depending on whether your source is happy about being
publicly identified or whether they want to keep some secrecy about what they tell you. These
three levels (which we will explain in detail) are:

On the record, which means you can use both their words and their name;

Non-attributable, which means you can use the information, but not the source's name;

Off the record, which means you cannot use either the information or the source's name.
All of these terms are only used to describe reporting methods. They should not appear in your
finished story. Let us look at these three in detail:

On the record

Most information you are given will be on the record. People will tell you the details openly and
allow you to quote their names and titles. The politician making a speech, the witness describing
a crash, the police officer reporting an arrest, the company chairman defending an increase in
prices, all are usually prepared to be quoted and to give their names. Even if they are unhappy
about the story you are writing (perhaps because it makes them look bad), most people will
understand your need to report fairly and accurately what they say.
It is always best to get information on the record. You can remain accurate by using the exact
words people say. You can also make the story seem more human by using direct quotes (or by
using their voices on radio and television). But most important, people judge what they read or
hear by the person who says it. They are much more likely to take notice if the Justice Minister
says he believes in capital punishment than if the man who sweeps the street says it. On the
record comments have an extra level of understanding for people because they know who is
speaking and exactly what was said.

Non-attributable

Sometimes a source will give you information on the understanding that you can use the
information but not attribute it to them.
Your source may do this for one of several reasons. Perhaps they are not officially allowed to
give you the information, but they think it could be made public. Perhaps they do not want to be
in the public eye.
Politicians sometimes give non-attributable details of a plan so that they can find out public
reaction to it without any risk. If the public likes the plan, the politician can then go on the record
and claim the credit. If the public do not like the plan, the politician can abandon it without
losing face because his name was never associated with it anyway. The danger for journalists is
that, if the politician does decide to abandon an unpopular plan, you will be left looking like a
fool for writing about a story which the politician will then deny ever having considered.
Politicians occasionally leak document to the media for similar reasons - to test public opinion
on an issue unofficially.
If you agree not to use your source's name, there are phrases you can use instead, such as "a
spokesperson for...", "a reliable source at..." or "sources within..." These should only be used if
you cannot convince the source to go on the record. They are an admission that you cannot tell
the whole truth.
If your source refuses to go on the record, ask them if they mind some information being used
and attributed to them, but leaving the more sensitive information not attributed specifically to
them. They may allow their name to be used for certain parts but not for others.
For example, the Police Minister, Ari Katoa, may tell you about a forthcoming operation against
drug growers, but not wish to be quoted on the details for fear of offending his police
commissioner. However, he will be quoted on the problem itself. You might then write the story:
Police in East Island are to launch a major offensive against marijuana growers.
Extra police will be drafted in from today and helicopters will be used to search out drug
plantations.
Sources within the Police Department say this is the biggest operation of its kind ever mounted
on the island.
Police Minister Ari Katoa says drug abuse is a serious menace to the stability of the nation and
the lives of young people.
You should try to avoid making any agreement to accept non-attributable information unless it is
unavoidable. Your job as a journalist is to pass on news as accurately as possible. Unattributed
stories will not seem as accurate to your audience as stories where information is attributed.

Off the record

You will occasionally be given information on the understanding that it is totally off the record.
Although you will have to ask your source exactly what they mean by such a phrase, it usually
means that you should not even write about what they tell you. And you must certainly not use
their name.
People usually give information off the record when they want you to understand the background
to something which is too sensitive for them to talk publicly about. For example, you might get a
tip-off of a major police operation planned for the next day against the hide-out of a criminal
gang. You ask the police chief for more information, but he will obviously not want you to
publish anything which might warn the gang. On the other hand, he might not want to say "no
comment" because you might start asking questions somewhere else. So he might say he will tell
you off the record, on condition that you do not tell anyone else.
Because he is asking you a favour - that is to keep secret something you already know a little bit
about - you should expect a favour in return. If you agree not to publish details of the story
before the raid, ask him whether, as a sign of goodwill on his part, he will allow you to
accompany the police on the raid. You will then beat all your competitors to the story of the raid
itself and have a scoop.
One thing to remember about any request to treat information off the record is that it is only a
request. You can agree or disagree. If a person says they will only speak to you off the record,
you must decide how important their information is - and whether you can get it from
somewhere else. If you cannot, perhaps you can agree to their conditions. In any case, you
should bargain with them to give it on the record or at least non-attributed.
If a person gives you an interview and only tells you at the end that it was all off the record,
argue that they should have said so earlier and not wasted your time. You are in a strong position
because you now know what it is they want to keep a secret.

Using assumed names

You occasionally have to protect a source's identity by giving them an assumed name. This arises
most often when you are writing about the victims of some kind of abuse, usually in feature
articles or documentaries. These people may not mind you telling their story, but they do not
want other people to know exactly who they are.
Children especially should be protected, although you can use assumed names for anyone with a
good reason to have their identity kept secret, such as alcoholics, drug addicts or battered wives.
It is usual in such cases to give the person assumed name, for example "Tony" or "Juanita", and
no surname. You must, of course, tell your readers or listeners that this is not the person's real
name, but is being used to protect them. If you use a picture them, make sure they are not
recognisable in it. If you use their voice, it is common practice in radio and television to
electronically change it so it cannot be recognised.
You may also have to disguise other facts of the story if there is a chance that these will lead
people to identify the person. This should only be done after careful consideration and with the
approval of your editor.

By line

Bylines tell who wrote an article. They are a small element in books, magazines, newspaper,
or newsletter design but certainly important to the author. In some cases, bylines may be used to
give credit for photographs or illustrations.

Designing with Bylines

Bylines should usually be kept simple and non-obtrusive. Bylines should be distinct from
the headlines and body copy but shouldn't stand out too much.

While bylines are important to authors and can help lend credibility for the reader, they are
generally not a newsletter design element that needs to jump off the page and scream Read
Me! They do provide an element of personalization, letting the reader know that it is a real
person talking to them.
• Use size, typestyle, color, embellishments, and alignment to differentiate bylines from
other nearby article elements such as headlines, datelines, decks, kickers, and body copy.

• Use a smaller font than the headline and subtitles.

• Use a smaller font and/or a different style of the body text such as italics or small caps.

• Bylines are often prefaced by the word "By" or sometimes "Written by" which could be
capitalized or kept all lowercase. "Photographed by" or "Illustrated by" may preface other
types of credit lines.

• Other prefacing options are to use symbols such as an em dash, a tilde, or a bullet.

• Bylines can appear at the top or bottom of the article in a book, magazine, newspaper, or
newsletter design. Placed at the end of an article, bylines are often accompanied by credit
blocks or mini-bios that describe the author's credentials and/or provide contact details.
For example:
By Jacci Howard Bear, contact the author at her desktop publishing website at https://
www.thoughtco.com/jacci-howard-bear-1073678

• Although usually found after the headline, sometimes the byline is incorporated into a
section header preceding the headline. This placement is often used for recurring columns
or sections that appear in each issue of a periodical.

• Bylines can be aligned left, right, or centered.

• Bylines on Web page articles are often hyperlinked to a biography (such as my byline at
the end of this article, ~ Jacci Howard Bear), a list of other articles, or to the author's Web
site in the case of guest articles written for other sites.

Examples of Written Bylines

Bylines can be accompanied by additional descriptive text pertinent to the article itself including
a copyright notice, revision notice, or indication that the article was previously published or a
reprint. These can appear on the same line or separate lines such as:
by Charles Molder © 1998, revised March 2003

or,

By Jacci Bear

Reprinted from The INK Spot magazine
Bylines can be accompanied by other descriptive text pertinent to the author such as identifying
the author by area of expertise or location.

BY CATHY CARROLTON,

A FREELANCE WRITER BASED IN WASHINGTON D.C.


or,

by Jack B. Nimble, professional candle jumper

Ghostwriters may get "as-told-to" or "with" bylines to acknowledge their assistance to non-
writers. This is frequently used for first-person narratives and personal experience pieces.

BY JACK B. NIMBLE

with JACK B. QUICK

or,

by Jack B. Nimble as told to Jack B. Quick

Keeping It Consistent

Once you've established a byline style, aim for consistency throughout your book, magazine,
newspaper, or newsletter design, issue-to-issue, or within certain types of articles. For example,
staff writers for a publication may have one style of byline while guest writers have another.
Feature articles may use one byline style with a different style for departments, columnists, or
lesser features. Set up a paragraph style in your software that is specifically for each of these
types of bylines.
Bylines are a small element of a page layout but don't make them an afterthought -- give credit
creatively.

Embargo

So what is an embargoed release? An embargoed release is a media release or announcement that

is shared with the media in advance of its publishing date. Unlike ‘off the record’ which is never
supposed to be published at all, embargoed information is intended to be published. But, it is
only meant to be published at the time disclosed by the release distributer. The release shares
confidential information with the journalist, but it is shared with the understanding that it is
meant to remain confidential until the stated publishing date. This date is stated very clearly at
the beginning of the release. The crucial part to embargoes is the element of trust. By sending
your release out with an embargoed release date you are placing a great deal of trust in the media
to respect your wishes. However, by doing this you can help form a stronger relationship and
earn the respect of the journalist and more often than not they will abide by your embargoed
date.

What’s the point?

Embargoes allow you to send your information out to journalists prior to the release date to give
them notice of the upcoming news. This allows them to prepare their stories in advance. With
increased lead time it gives the journalist time to provide additional insight into the issue that
might not otherwise be part of a breaking news story. Embargoes stop information being
published before “full disclosure.” This is particularly important for public companies that by
law need to ensure that everyone hears the news on a particular issue at the same time. Sharing
this information via an embargo hopes to prevent the information being leaked early. Another
reason to use embargoed releases is to ensure information is released at the same time across a
variety of media sources. Newspapers are generally dailies with tight timelines, but magazines
have long lead times and often require information months in advance. The embargoed date
allows the stories to be published simultaneously.

When to use them?

Very few announcements need to be embargoed. Here are a couple of examples to help you
understand when you should use an embargo:

• If the announcement is complex and needs demonstrating and explaining.

• If there are commercial reasons why details can’t be shared gradually over time beforehand,
such as competitive pressure.



 Print Journalism
102
Unit-2

Beat Reporting

A news beat is a news territory assigned to a reporter who is then expected to keep track of all
events taking place in his or her beat.
The reporter has to ensure that he covers all routine events on his news beat. More important, he
is required to develop contacts that can help him generate special and exclusive stories.
All hell breaks loose if a reporter misses a story on his beat. If this happens too often, the
reporter may even be taken off the beat.
The news beat system has been developed to achieve two goals:
▪ The first is to ensure that the newspaper does not miss any major news story pertaining to
that beat.
▪ The second is to give focus and direction to the news generation activity.

A city newspaper that focuses exclusively on local stories will assign its best reporters to the
following three beats: crime, civic affairs and courts. These beats are called the “Big Three”
beats in most newsrooms as they generate the highest number of stories.These beats are also used
to blood new reporters.
Specialised Beats
The next level of beats is specialised beats. These include sports, business, education, health,
science, environment, civil aviation, defence, gender, lifestyle, etc.
The most prestigious news beat in India is politics. The city reporters, as they become more
experienced, are assigned political beats.
The specialisation depends on the nature of political activity. In small cities one reporter may
cover two or three political parties while in big cities like Delhi and Mumbai, each reporter may
be assigned a specific party.
There is specialisation within news beats also, especially in the case of sports and business beats.
A sports reporter, for instance, may specialise in cricket, hockey, tennis or motor sports. He will
then cover all national and international events pertaining to his beat.
The same applies to business journalism. Business journalists specialise in macro-economics,
stock markets, corporate stories, etc. depending upon their areas of interest.
Lifestyle has emerged as an important news beat in recent years. All newspapers and wire
services have started hiring reporters who can cover fashion, films, food, etc.
Objective News Report
Reporting o'f news, unlike editorial writing, is often described as a coldly impersonal job. A
reporter is essentially a story teller and he should tell the story in an objective and tpthful
manner, without lacing it with personal opinions or subjective comments. He should be fair and
impartial and present both sides of the story. Complete objectivity is a mere concept. The
reporter is a human being, not a robot, and he has certain ideas, feelings, attitudes, opinions and
prejudices. However, a good reporter should try to rise above them and tell the facts as he has
collected them in his search for truth.

No responsible reporter would behave like the notorious American jounalist, Janet Cooke, who
won the prestigious Pulitzer prize in 1980 for a story about drugs which was later proved to be
fictional and fictitious. The journalist committed a deliberate fraud by dramatising a fake scene
in which an eight year-old boy is injected with heroin supplied by the lwer of the boy's mother.
Nearer home, the story of "mass rape" at a students function in a Madhya Pradesh town,
published in a national newspaper was found to be baseless. When the report appeared on the
front page of the newspaper it caused a sensation. The Editor asked a reporter to investigate. On
arriving in the town the reporter first questioned the reporter of the news item, who insisted that
the mass rape did take place. By way of corroboration he produced a number of eye-witnesses.
However, when they were crossexamined and asked specifically to reveal only what they had
seen, and not what tney naa heard, the investigator soon realised that the reporter had written the
story on the basis of a bazar gossip and filed it without verifying the facts. All that had happened
was that during a function to celebrate the annual day of a local college, a 'portion of the
shamiana came down, the electricity got cut off and a few students entered the women's
enclosure and molested some of the girls.

There is this apocryphal story of a cub reporter, who, on his first day at work wrote a piece with
a cocksureness which was misplaced. On reading the piece, the editor advised him to be cautious
and a little circumspect when writing about sensitive issues. The press, the editor reminded him,
must not ordinarily violate the various laws on the statute book concerning libel, national
security and parliamentary privileges. m e next day the cub reporter submitted a stoq which ran
as follows:

"Mrs. Gulab Paniwala, alleged wife of Mr. Rakesh Paniwala, who claims to be
the mayor of Shangrila, gave a cocktail party at her house in Model Town on
Monday to bid farewell to Mrs. Jyoti Jariwala, reported to be the wife of the
well-khown industrialist, Samar Jariwala. A-mong those present at the party
were Mrs. Romi Puriwala, said to be the widow of the late Hansraj Puriwala,
former cabinet minister, along with her alleged offspring, Jani Puhala ...* and
so it went on.

the reporter had quite clearly gone to the other extreme in writing this report which was quickly
consigned to the waste paper basket. In reporting news, you must remember that facts are sacred.
You must check and cross-check the facts from different sources until you are absolutely sure of
them. Only then should you write your story. The golden rule is: tell the truth. Objective
reporting is, of course, not synonymous with dullness. It means fair and impartial reporting that
is free from personal bias or prejudice.

Interpretative News Reporting

Interpretative reporting, as the phrase suggests, combines facts with interpretation. It delves into
reasons and meanings of a development. It is the interpretative reporter's task to give the
information alongwith an interpretation of its significance. In doing so he uses his knowledge
and experience to give the read:r an idea of the background of an event and explain the
consequences it could Idd to. Besides his own knowledge and research in the subject, he often
has to rely on the opinions of specialists to-do a good job.
In the USA, the first important inputs to interpretative reporting was provided by World War-I.
Curtis D. MacDongall writes in his book Interpretation Reporting that when the First World War
broke out, most Americans were taken by surprise. They were utterly unable to explain its
causes. This led to changes in the style of reporting. The result was that when in 1939 the Second
World War began, an overwhelming majority of the Americans expected it or at least knew it was
possible. MacDongall says that a successful journalist should be more than a thoroughly trained
journeyman. With his reading of history, economics, sociology, political science and other
academic subjects, an interpretative reporter is aware of the fact that a news item is not an
isolated incident, but an inevitable link to a chain of important events. An interpretative reporter
cannot succeed if he is hampered by prejudices and stereotyped attitudes, which would bias his
preception of human affairs. Interpretative repqrting thus goes behind the news, brings out the
hidden significance df an event and separates truthfrom falsehood.

Investigative News Reporting

It is difficult to define the term "investigative" journalism. Some newspapers scoff at the very
idea of an investigative journalist. In one way, of course, "investigative" journalism is a
redundant concept, since all stories require some kind of investigation on the part of the reporter.
However, the investigative reporter is expected to dig I deeply beyond the facts stated in the hard
news. Though we may face difficulty in defining the term, we cannot ignore the concept of
investigative journalism. Many journalism students have an ambition to become "investigative"
reporters. An "investigative" journalist sees himself as the conscience of society, pursuing
corruption in high places without fear or favour. In his book Press md Law (Vikas, New Delhi
1990), Justice A.N. Grover has quoted from the foreward of Investigative reporting by Clark R.
Mollevhogg. According to the Foreword, investigative reporting has three elements :

-It has to be the own work of the reporter. Under no circumstance should it be of
others;

-The subject of the reporting should be such-that it is of importance for the readers
to know; and

-There must not be any attempt made to hide the truth from the people.

Investigative reporting has made great leaps in western countries. In India, it is still in
its infancy. Most Indian newspapers do not have, or do not allocate, the manpower
and funds necessary for a first-rate investigative job.
Attempts at investigative reporting, to quote one eminent Indian editor, are like
drilling for oil. A fair amount of wastage of effort has to be taken for granted. But
when the oil is discovered and becomes marketable, the sense of achievement is
usually more than in any sector of journalistic enterpihe.
The best example of investigative reporting in our times, was the Watergate story
which led to the disgrace and downfall of U.S. President Richard Nixon. When the
two young reporters of The Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein,
started investigating the arrest of four men for a burglary at Watergate, the
Democratic Party's national headquarters on June 17,1972, they had no idea that
their inquiry would culminate in the resignation of the President. The remarkable
thing about their investigation was that it kept to the highest standards of professional
journalism. The reporters did not start gunning for Nixon from the beginning. They
merely pursued the burglary attempt and only later came up with startling facts
linking the White House with it. "We did not go after the President, we went after the
story", they explained.
Though the Washington Post stories led to the downfall of President Nixon, the same
paper, later in 1980, got involved in the most celebrated case of journalistic fraud in
modem times-the case of Janet Cooke, already described in this unit. Janet Cooke's
case gives a clear wrning that every story whether "investigative" or not, should be
handled by editors with great care and caution, otherwise, it will bring the newspaper
to disrepute. Z.J. Herbert Altsehull in his book from Milton to McLuhan (Longman,
New York, 1990) states how thie Janet Cooke story got into the Washington Post. An
internal investigation by the newspaper's Ombudsman, Bill Green, blamed "failure of
a system" for not checking up thoroughly on Cook's story. The failure to check was in
part, Green said, the result of the fact that Cooke was black and that white editors did
not want to be seen as racist. The Cooke's story appeared in the Post on 28 September
1980 and the edition featuring 8 Green's report appeared on 19 April 1981. Cooke was
fired from the Post and was forced to return the Pulitzer Prize.
Let us return to Indian situations. In India, investigative reporting started making a
mark after the end of the internal emergency in 1977, particularly through the reports
published in The Indian Express.

In our country, investigative reporters have brought to light a number of scandalsthe

Bhagalpur blindings incidents by the police, Kuo oil deal, A.R. Antulay's private
trusts, the securities scam involving Indian and foreign banks and stock brokers, etc.
An enterprising reporter once got himself arrested so that he could give a first-hand
account of life in Delhi's Tihar Jail.

With governments becoming increasingly secretive and corruption spreading its

tentacles far and wide, the need for investigative reporting cannot be over emphasized.
Yet we must remember that investigative reporting is not everybody's cup of tea. It
requires hard and sustained work. The investigative reporter should be a combination
of a crusader, super detective and blood hound and he should have the necessary time
' and finance to carry out his work.

In the pursuit of hi quarry, the investigative reporter must draw a line between
candid reporting and muck-raking, mud-slinging, character assassination or
blackmail. He should base his report on incontrovertible facts, not on half-truths and
lies. He should be wary of lobbies and lobbyists-political or commercial-trying to
misguide him. And he should not behave like a peeping Tom or a prosecutor.
The best kind of investigative reporting is that which keeps the public interest in
mind. It may highlight an injustice, expose corrupt practices or unmask dishonest
politicians and bureaucrats.

Experience has been that unless an investigative reporter or a crusading reporter gets
?he support of the judiciary, the executive or the legislative, cannot bring his reports
to logical ends. The Bhagalpur blinding report would have ended like any other report
if a public interest litigation would not have been filed against the police. In the
USA the Watergate stories would not have produced any result if they did not get
the support of the legislative which threatened the impeachment of President Richard
Nixon.

Reporting for different media

The planning, organization and action in reporting as also selection and presentation of news
vary from medium to medium. Some differences are so aloud and clear that even a common
sensible user of news can make out. While print media focuses on contents, television in
packaging. While print media concentrates on sensitivity on sensation. While print media
maintains a balance, television creates hype. No doubt, there are exceptions on both sides.
For a learner, understanding of reporting ina a daily newspaper should be first and foremost task.
The reporting network in a newspaper is vast and complex and its handling demands lots of
expertise. One who has done reporting in a daily for few years can be fitted into any news
organization, particularly the scribe who would have started as a trainee in the city reporting
room.

Reporting for a Newspaper

The reporting network in a daily newspaper includes city reporting room in the city from where
the newspaper is published, bureau in the national capital and the state capitals and reporting
offices and correspondents in districts and towns close to the place of publication which are
considered the main circulation areas of the newspaper.

The thrust of reporting is on the coverage from the districts, cities, villages where the newspaper
is largely circulated. The reporting is mainly community oriented and even small incidents and
happenings become major news.

Reporting for Magazines

Reporting is not the thrust area in a news magazine which focuses more on follow up, analytical
and research-based stories. Whatever reports are filled, most of them are clibbed to make one
major story or few can be taken as leg stories with a major story. Obviously, the job demands
more editing skills than reporting qualifications.
A news magazine has a bureau in the main office i.e. the place of publication. There are not more
than two or three bureaus or offices of the magazine in the country. Since a news magazine is
either weekly or fortnightly, correspondents in the bureau have enough time to finish the
reporting assignments given to them, even if it involves travelling to different locations.

Reporting for News Agencies

News agency is nothing else but a reporting network. Its reporting infrastructure is very vast, so
widespread that no part of the country remains uncovered. While a daily newspaper might have
its correspondents in 10-15 districts, a news agency has its correspondents in more than 500
districts of the country.
A news agency has a bureau at its headquarter or main office, bureaus in state capitals, bureau/
regional offices in major cities and stringers in every district of the country. For coverage from
abroad, correspondents are posted in major cities in the world.
For a better understanding, you can take the example of PTI and UNI, the two indigenous news
agencies. Almost all the news organizations as also number of non media organizations subscribe
to the services of PTI and UNI. These subscribers might be based in any part of the country yet
they find the news reports of these agencies useful.

The news agency reports are mostly concise, straight, informative and factual. If you want to
look for objectivity in reporting, look at agency reports. These reports are free from any bias.
Having not tilt towards this side or that side.

Lead(also spelled as lede) in News writing

A lead (also known as a lede) is the first paragraph or several paragraphs of a story, be it a blog
entry or a long article. Its mission is to catch readers’ attention and draw them in. Getting them
truly involved is the duty of the rest of the story; getting them to that point is the job of the lead.

The lead, or opening paragraph, is the most important part of a news story. With so many sources
of information – newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and the Internet – audiences simply are not
willing to read beyond the first paragraph (and even sentence) of a story unless it grabs their
interest. A good lead does just that. It gives readers the most important information in a clear,
concise and interesting manner. It also establishes the voice and direction of an article.
Tips for Writing a Lead

1. The Five W’s and H: Before writing a lead, decide which aspect of the story – who,
what, when, where, why, how – is most important. You should emphasize those aspects in
your lead. Wait to explain less important aspects until the second or third sentence.
2. Conflict: Good stories have conflict. So do many good leads.
3. Specificity: Though you are essentially summarizing information in most leads, try to be
specific as possible. If your lead is too broad, it won’t be informative or interesting.
4. Brevity: Readers want to know why the story matters to them and they won’t wait long
for the answer. Leads are often one sentence, sometimes two. Generally, they are 25 to 30
words and should rarely be more than 40. This is somewhat arbitrary, but it’s important –
especially for young journalists – to learn how to deliver information concisely. See the
OWL’s page on concise writing for specific tips. The Paramedic Method is also good for
writing concisely.
5. Active sentences: Strong verbs will make your lead lively and interesting. Passive
constructions, on the other hand, can sound dull and leave out important information,
such as the person or thing that caused the action. Incomplete reporting is often a source
of passive leads.
6. Audience and context: Take into account what your reader already knows. Remember
that in today’s media culture, most readers become aware of breaking news as it happens.
If you’re writing for a print publication the next day, your lead should do more than
merely regurgitate yesterday’s news.
7. Honesty: A lead is an implicit promise to your readers. You must be able to deliver what
you promise in your lead.

What to Avoid

1. Flowery language: Many beginning writers make the mistake of overusing adverbs and
adjectives in their leads. Concentrate instead on using strong verbs and nouns.
2. Unnecessary words or phrases: Watch out for unintentional redundancy. For example, 2
p.m. Wednesday afternoon, or very unique. You can’t afford to waste space in a news
story, especially in the lead. Avoid clutter and cut right to the heart of the story.
3. Formulaic leads: Because a lot of news writing is done on deadline, the temptation to
write tired leads is strong. Resist it. Readers want information, but they also want to be
entertained. Your lead must sound genuine, not merely mechanical.
4. It: Most editors frown on leads that begin with the word it because it is not precise and
disorients the reader.

Types of Leads
Style implies a certain degree of voice and personal ownership over how a story is written.
Although there are many ways to write leads, here are seven common approaches.

Straight Lead
Also called the “summary” lead, this is by far the most common and traditional version; it should
be used in most cases. It is a brief summary, containing most of the Five W’s and H in one
sentence.
“The European Parliament voted Tuesday to ratify the landmark Paris climate accord, paving
the way for the international plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions to become binding as soon
as the end of this week.”

Anecdotal Lead
The anecdotal lead uses a quick, relevant story to draw in the reader. The anecdote must help
enhance the article’s broader point, and you must explain the connection to that point in the first
few sentences following the lead.
“At the dilapidated morgue in the northern Brazilian city of Natal, Director Marcos Brandao
walks over the blood-smeared floor to where the corpses are kept. He points out the labels
attached to the bright metal doors, counting out loud. It has not been a particularly bad night,
yet there are nine shooting victims in cold storage.”

Scene-Setting Lead
The scene-setting lead describes the physical location where a story takes place.
“On the second floor of an old Bavarian palace in Munich, Germany, there’s a library with high
ceilings, a distinctly bookish smell and one of the world’s most extensive collections of Latin
texts. About 20 researchers from all over the world work in small offices around the room.”

First-Person Lead
This lead describes the journalist’s personal experience with the topic. It should only be used
when you have a valuable contribution and perspective that help illuminate the story.
“For many of us, Sept. 11, 2001 is one of those touchstone dates — we remember exactly where
we were when we heard that the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I was in
Afghanistan.”

Observational Lead
When offering an authoritative observation about a story and how it fits in with the larger
picture, you should make sure you know the broader context of your subject matter.
“Tax records and literary criticism are strange bedfellows. But over the weekend, the two
combined and brought into the world a literary controversy — call it the Ferrante Furor of
2016.”
Zinger Lead
The zinger lead is dramatic and attention-grabbing. Although it has a strong tone, it requires a
hard set of facts to back it up.
“His last meal was worth $30,000 and it killed him.” (The story was about a man who died
while trying to smuggle cocaine-filled bags in his stomach.)

Question Lead
Question leads do just that: ask a question. Although they are effective in sparking interest, use
them sparingly because they generally do not provide the main points of a story as concisely.
“What’s increasing faster than the price of gasoline? Apparently, the cost of court lobbyists.”
Ultimately, understanding the types of leads and style options available can help journalists tell
stories as clearly and effectively as possible.

Types of Body in News writing

The section of the news that follows the lead is referred to as the body of an article. This is the
information that the readers need to know. The reporter needs to know how to organize all of the
facts and write them effectively to write an effective body. What many reporters have to think
about when composing a good body is how they can get the information across to a reader
(Bender et al. 242). There are many styles and techniques for writing the body of an article and
some are more appropriate for specific articles while others are not. Reporters have the ability to
be creative and choose the style they like best.

The first style of is called the inverted pyramid. This method arranges the information by
importance in descending order. Readers often do not have to read the full article when it is
written in this method because the most important information was said at the beginning. The
emphasis of the news is very important in this step. Also it is important to provide transitions
from the lead to the rest of the article. Finally, it is important that the second paragraph is not all
background information. If a reporter does not emphasize the news, does not use transitions, and
is all background information the story is unorganized and boring (Bender et al. 243).
 !

The next method of writing is the hourglass style. This style has three parts. The first part is an
inverted pyramid top, summarizing the most newsworthy information in descending order. The
second step is the turn, which transitions between the two sections. Finally, the third step is a
chronological conclusion and this is the narrative story telling piece. The hourglass style is an
effective way of writing, but it is not appropriate for all articles (Bender et al. 248).
Next is the focus style. Many articles that appear on the front pages of newspapers are written in
this format. This method incorporates storytelling and starts with a specific person or event to
illustrate a bigger issue. The first step is the focus lead. After that it is the nut graph, which
describes the central point and how the lead exemplifies the point. The third step is the body and
that elaborates the central point in detail. Finally, the last step is the kicker, which brings the
article to a conclusion (Bender et al. 249).

!
The last method of writing a body for newspapers discussed in the book is the narrative. There
are two parts to a narrative the story and the storyteller. To successfully write a narrative the
reporter not only has to go through extensive interviews, but also has to take a significant amount
of time and do observations (Bender et al. 251).

! The
New York Times composes dozens upon dozens of articles daily and many of them reflect the
writing styles above. The first article, Australia Heat Wave Is Tied to Climate Change, is an
example of the focus writing style. The body of the second paragraph describes a specific
situation that illustrates a larger issue. creative when writing in a narrative and they can use
storytelling techniques like flashback and dialogue to make the story more interesting.
Five groups of researchers, using distinct methods, analyzed the heat that baked Australia for
much of last year and continued into 2014, shutting down the Australian Open tennis tournament
at one point in January. All five came to the conclusion that last year’s heat waves could not have
been as severe without the long-term climatic warming caused by human activity.
Also, the topic of this article is something that could be considered front-page material, which
often uses the focus method of writing. This article has incorporated elements of story telling and
as a result it is more creative and engaging. The facts of climate change are scary, so I believe the
story telling effect is a better way to expose the main points without making the readers feel
uncomfortable, but still remaining informed.
The next article, Yankees Expect Alex Rodriguez to Be Their Third Baseman in 2015, is
an example of the hourglass style of writing. The article starts off with the most newsworthy
information and then transitions into a chronological conclusion. Many sports articles are written
in the hourglass style because it is an effective way to arrange information.

An example of the inverted pyramid style of writing can be shown in the article, Atlanta Trial
Opens in School Cheating Scandal. This article summarizes the information in descending order
of importance. It is not necessary for a reader to go through the whole article because they could
get the main point of the article from the first half of the article. Minor details are presented at
the end of the article and could essentially be eliminated. The news is emphasized and
transitioned in the paragraphs right after the lead.
Writing the body of an article can sometimes be just as difficult as writing the lead of the story. It
is important to remember to how to best get the information across from to the reader. Strong
transitions from the lead to the body paragraph connect the progression of thought from one idea
to another, which makes the body of an article much more appealing to the reader. There are
many details to remember to write effectively and more organized.

Types of Headlines

Different types of headlines are used in journalism; the specific type used is based on the
structure of the news story. Print media is geared toward informing the public on various topics.
An important aspect in getting and holding the attention of the public is through the use of
attractive headlines, no longer than one, two or in some cases three lines. Headlines should
summarize in a few striking words the news story featured under it. The point is to get the
attention of the reader and draw him into the story.

Flush Left Headline

This is one of the more modern headline forms in use. It consists of two or three lines of
headline, each one set flush left to the left side of the space. The design is simple and allows
freedom in writing the headline. No rules govern the writing of the flush left headline; however a
uniform style for better results is generally adopted. This type of headline is popular because it is
easy to write, allows flexibility in unit count and provides a feeling of airiness to the page with
the white space.

Banner Headline
The journalism industry is highly competitive, and attracting the attention of the readers, viewers
or listeners is the most important thing. The audience should have a reason for choosing a
particular newspaper, television channel or radio station. Headlines play an important role in
attracting attention, especially in print media. Banner headlines are words printed in extra large
letters across the top of the front page of the newspaper on extremely important stories; they are
not used frequently, but when they are used, they have significant impact.

Inverted Pyramid Headline

There are distinct advantages to using the inverted pyramid headline style for news writing.
People often are in a rush and seldom have time to read every word of a story. The advantage of
the inverted pyramid headline is that it concentrates on presenting pertinent facts first. With
inverted pyramid stories, the most important information goes in the first paragraph, and the less
important information follows to the very end of the story. The inverted pyramid headline
generally consists of three lines -- the first runs across the column and the other two lines are
shorter than the first line. The headline is created from the informative facts presented at the start
of the story, giving the reader the most important points quickly.

Cross-Line Headline
The cross-line headline is quite similar to a banner headline. While it is a large headline, it does
not span the entire width of the page, but it does run across all the columns of the story it pertains
to. The cross-line headline is one of the simplest types of headlines, consisting of a single line
and one or most often more columns in width. It can run flush on both sides of the paper or it can
have the words centered over the columns. This type of headline is generally used when there is
more than one column for a story and to produce a formal look.

Guidelines for writing a Good Headline

Listed below are the standards by which headlines are judged:

1. Wording is specific, accurate; unnecessary wording is omitted.

2. Contains subject and verb. No labels.

3. Emphasis on active verbs.

4. Written in future or present tense.

5. Split headlines (modifiers, verbs) avoided.

6. Redundancy in wording avoided.

7. Does not sacrifice accuracy for creativity or cuteness.

8. Main headlines not dependent on kickers, decks.

9. Secondary headlines (kickers or decks) emphasize unusual, significant aspect of news.

10. Grammar, spelling, punctuation correct.

All of the above apply to The generic headlines. More specific guidelines are listed below.

1. Read the entire story first. Then write a headline that best forecasts or characterizes the main
point or points of the story. Only then should you wordsmith to fit the space available.

2. Write your headline with these goals in mind: • You want to hook the reader – but remember
#7 above. • You must accurately characterize the story.

3. Subject plus verb plus object is the best construction – it is direct, vivid and easy to read.

4. Use active voice. Use present tense. Use future tense when story describes future event, but
remember your publication date – there may be times you are writing a headline for a story about
an event that will happen before the paper hits the stands. In that case, if the story is not written
from that perspective, it must be called to the attention of the editor for rewrite.

5. When space is tight it is appropriate to use telegraphic style – eliminate articles (a, an, the)
and conjunctions (and, but). The exceptions to this are when elimination makes for bad or
inaccurate copy. Never eliminate articles that are part of a proper name.

6. Humor should not be used in the place of accuracy. Humorous headlines should usually be
used only when followed by kickers or decks.

7. Photo hammers may be treated more liberally in the use of humor. However, they should never
be forced; they must be appropriate to the subject matter of the photo.

8. Do not repeat the lead in the headline or use the same words used in kickers or decks

9. Put no facts in the headline that are not in the story.

10. Avoid slang, jargon and provincial expressions in headlines.

 11. Use numerals. Round numbers are preferred unless exactness is the point of the story. Spell
out million – it’s shorter than zeros. Spell out the numeral 1 when standing alone.

12. Round off the cents in dollar figures unless the cents is the point of the story.

13. At line ends do not split verbs, separate adjectives from nouns, divide hyphenated words,
split prepositional phrases, or separate adverbs from verbs.

14. Alliteration is acceptable for feature headlines only – and then rarely.

15. A statement qualified or limited in a story must be qualified in the headline.

16. Do not abbreviate streets, days, months, titles or state names standing alone in headlines –
Only N.Y. and L.A. will be accepted.

17. Do not change tense within or between decks, hammers, kickers or headlines.
 Print Journalism
102
Unit-3

Set up and functions of a City reporting room in a Daily and a Bureau

Reporting infrastructure in a daily newspaper can have the following broad
classifications:

. News Bureau

. City/Local reporting

. Outstation correspondents

. Correspondents

News Bureau
A daily published from new Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata or any other part of the country definitely
has a news bureau in the national capital, New Delhi. Many newspapers also have a news bureau
in the capital of the state from where they are bringing out the newspaper.

Bureau in New Delhi is responsible for coverage of parliament, various ministries and
departments, PMO, National headquarters, political parties visits of foreign dignitaries and
national level organization and institution and like planning commission and election
commission. Bureau is the state capital covers assembly, state government, CM and other
ministers/ministries, state headquarter of political parties and other state level events/incidents/
happenings.

City/ Local Reporting

Local reporting means coverage of incidents, events, happenings or any other newsworthy
development taking place in the city from where the newspaper is getting published, for the
benefit of citizens. Thus, local reporting is city centric reporting. It is reporting of the local
concern of the local consumption.

For Local reporting, a daily has a city reporting room comprising few reporters, mostly of middle
and junior level. The setup of city reporting room is as follows:

Chief Reporter

Senior Reporter

Staff Reporter

Trainee Reporter

Functions of a City reporting Room

City reporting room comes to life every evening from 4 to 10 when reporters reach office after
day long hectic schedule. During day time the reporters are in the field attending press
conferences, seminars and functions meeting the people, authorities and sources roaming around
in search of news and desperately looking for some scoop.

In the evening, the reporter files their reports, have professional exchanges, decide about their
assignments and seek instructions from the chief reporter. They also interact with editorial
counterparts- sub editors/ copy editors who edit their copies and finalize the city/local pages.
They even talk to the news editor and seek his/her guidance and advice.

Reporters remain under pressure to meet their deadlines. They are mostly seen busy with their
mobiles or office phones to collect information for their half baked stories or simply doing public
relationing. They also devote a lot of time in meeting the visitors who might be their contacts or
persons with invitations for press conferences etc. or the common men with vital clues to
something great.

In the reporting room, a large number of stories originate from the bulk of press releases received
in the newspaper office every day. While it is compulsory to take the press releases issued by
government information agencies, on many occasions press releases are found carrying some
useful information for the readers. Also, press releases are a great help to reporters for filling up
space in the columns of newspapers.

Besides filing their exclusive and investigative stories, reporters are either writing a general story
or the simple story types. As part of the general stories, they write personal briefs, fillers, stories
based on speeches, publications, interviews and meetings and special events. As simple story
types, reporters file stories on illness, deaths and funerals, fire and accidents, seasons, weathers
and national disasters.

Chief Reporter

Chief reporter is in charge of city reporting room. Hierarchy wise he/she is equivalent to the
chief sub editor working in the news room. He/she is answerable to the news editor and finally to
the editor of the newspaper.

Chief reporter is responsible for the local coverage of his/her basic job includes:
• Organizing work in the reporting room.
• Distributing of beats among reporters.
• Giving assignments to reporters on a day to day basis.
• Discussing story ideas with reporters and granting a go-ahead.
• Monitoring working of reporters to ensure accomplishments of given jobs.
• Leading the team of reporters from the front providing all possible help, guidance, tips
and even contacts in case of need.
• Resolving differences of reporters arising due to professional rivalry among them.
• Bringing innovative ideas to local reporting.
 • The chief reporter consults news editor on all important stories; thereafter the display of
major stories is decided.
• To plan and organize local reporting in a manner that each segment of readers in the city
is catered to effectively.
• To scare over rival newspapers in local reporting and to ensure that the newspaper is not
missing out on any important happening of the city.

Senior Reporter

• Like news and feature story for columns.

• Gather and analyse information about relevant events.
• Evaluate news leads and news tips to develop story ideas.
• Assist in editing and proof reading.
• Travel beyond for research of a story.
• Determines a story. Emphasizes its length, format and organize material accordingly.
• Arrange interviews with people who can provide information about a story.
• Research and analyse background information related to story in order to be able to
provide complete and accurate information.
• Check reference materials such as books, news style, magazines or public rewards to
obtain relevant facts.
• Investigate breaking news developments such as disasters, crime or human interest
stories.
• Discuss issue with editor to establish priorities or positions.
• Research and report on specialized field such as medicines, science and technology,
politics, foreign affairs, sports, arts, consumer affairs, business, religion, crime or
education.

Trainee Reporter

• Write news, features, sports and business copy for the newspapers as directed by the
news desk.
• Develop writing, contacts and keep a contact book.
• To work closely with photographers on assignment.
• To be aware of and understand the editorial policy of newspaper and implement.

City reporting room in a Bureau

Bureau chief
 Beat reporter

Photographers

Stringers

Marketing Department

Bureau Chief

A person who supervises the work of the news bureau and assigns work to his reporters. The
bureau chief decides regarding the relative importance of the happenings in the city which should
be covered and reported. He receives many invitations for press conferences, public meetings,
demonstrations, agitations, strikes etc. he deputes his reporters to cover these events, he selects
the important items of printing.

Beat reporters

Beat reporters cover the news from the city role from the police station and from hospitals and
courts etc. while he is on his beat the news reporter makes a thorough check of all news sources;
he may do this once a day or several times a day. Moreover his day is never done for he is
expected to cover his beat 24 hours a day.

Photographers

Press photographers take photographs to record news, current events and life style stories aim is
to capture the best images in order to the event whatever is the story or to convey the message.

Stringers are appointed at small places or townships.

Marketing department
Taking the advertisements related to matrimonial, commercial and institutions for newspapers.

The roles and responsibilities of a Chief Sub Editor

A newspaper is a chronicle of events. But are all events news? No. News is something new;
something different, that is not routine. Who decides what is news and what is not? The editorial
department makes that crucial decision.
Before we go into the functioning of a newsroom in general or the role of a Chief Sub-editor in
particular, let us see who are all involved in putting together the newspaper that you eagerly wait
for every morning. The departments that are involved in the production of a newspaper are a)
Editorial Department b) Advertisement Department c) Press and d) Circulation Department.
Then of course, there are the HR Department, Accounts Department etc.
The Editorial Department is where all the news flows in. We shall go over this in greater detail
later. The Advertisement Department gets revenue for the newspaper by selling newspaper space
to advertisers. The economic viability of a news organisation (which is important in today’s
competitive scene) is determined by the efficiency of this section. The Press is where all the
mechanical aspects of production take place. And, lastly, the Circulation Department looks after
the marketing of the printed product.
Everyday is a new day for us in a newspaper office where our work is limited by the deadline.
All of us have a cut-off time, within which we have to complete our work. It is like a chain, when
one delays her work, it cascades into the next link and the net result will be a delay in printing
and consequent non-delivery of paper: effectively, a whole day’s work by hundreds of people
goes waste.
The editorial department


Let us get into the typical editorial department of a newspaper office. You can visualise it as a big
cauldron into which news flows in continuously from all across the world. In today’s paperless
digital world, the cauldron into which the news flows in is the computer. The editorial team
keeps a tab on this inflow, and selects and processes them for publication.
All though journalists have designations and prescribed areas of work, it is all teamwork. Seniors
and juniors help each other. There is no place for egos and complexes, which can dent the quality
of work. The senior-most in the team is Resident Editor; followed by News Editor, Chief Sub-
editors and Sub-editors. There are also Assistant Editors, Deputy Resident Editor, Deputy News
Editors and Senior Sub-editors. The Chief Reporter, who reports to the Editor or News Editor,
heads the bureau. Then come Special Correspondents, Senior Reporters and Reporters.
Resident Editor is everyone’s boss and is responsible for all that appears in the paper. Her work
includes interacting with other departments, a lot of administrative work, overseeing important
editorial matters etc. Today, many newspapers have multiple editions, so Resident Editors of
each edition coordinate with each other and keep in touch with their Chief Editor, who has a
larger editorial responsibility of the newspaper group as a whole. The News Editor heads the
editorial department. She assigns work to members of the desk, interacts with the advertisement
section regarding space for news on each page and basically oversees the work of the editorial
department.

News Editor

The News Editor is one of the most important persons who plan a daily newspaper. His role in
any newspaper office-whether it be weekly or daily-is all pervading. To a national newspaper an
active, intelligent and enterprising news editor is the vital spark which energises its news
coverage and outlook.
He is responsible for a steady and continuous inflow of up-to-the-minute news into newspaper
office. Although most of the news supplied is a mechanical process covered by daily routine, but
like all machinery of news gathering, the news editor is responsible for watching its smooth
functioning. The news editor keeps a careful eye on the routine side of his news collection as
well as on the other side of his work or the news desk which calls for more imaginative
emulation.

Function of the News Editor

An ideal news editor manages to get all the obvious stories into his paper with a good proportion
of them as exclusives. While the selection of obvious stories is important, greater importance is
attached to the original ones produced by his team of correspondents.
The number of words received on the teleprinter in a newspaper is so large that if each word
were to be printed, the newspaper will have to run into hundreds of pages each morning.
The news editor is called upon to use his discretion, discrimination and imagination in reading
the public mind and select the stories which have real news value and can be called important by
his readers-quite a large number to be allotted a "splash" position on the main news pages
according to the subject matter 01 field of activity they are concerned with.
All this has to be done with an alertness to ensure that the kind of stories readers seek shall be
found in his newspaper.
There are some fundamental stories which no newspaper can afford to miss as they go into all the
daily newspapers without exception. While they are important and have to be included, there are
others called exclusive which only an alert news editor can discover from the large ocean of copy
that has been pouring into the office during the day.
An intelligent news editor has to make a judicious follow-up of a seemingly promising paragraph
or sometimes even make further enquiry before finalising the story and give it the perfect shape
he wants.

Exclusive Stories of News Editor

The news editor gets good satisfaction from the stories which are exclusive to his own
newspaper. If he can manage to get into every issue a dozen or more minor stories with good
news value but exclusive, he feels elated.
The news editor is also responsible for final scrutiny of important news stories submitted by
different correspondents, feature writers and outside correspondents. He gives special attention to
the facts and figures included in the write-ups and wherever he is in doubt, he takes pains to
check-up their accuracy from the authentic source.
Any slip on his part can land the newspaper into trouble. Hence good newspapers have highly
experienced and intelligent news editors.

Organising Ability of News Editor

The hurry and scurry of daily routine makes heavy demands upon the organising ability of the
news editor and his decisions, especially when time is short yet there has to be accuracy. The
exigencies of the case may sometimes mean even deputing different correspondents to different
parts of the country to piece together the links of a promising story.
There are certain qualities that the News Editor must possess. He must have an infinite amount
of patience and a keen interest in news of all kind. He must have a good general educational
background with a fair amount of historical, political and economic knowledge. He must try to
keep himself abreast and informed on every important development in the work-a-day world.
He must enjoy reading the newspapers, the weeklies, and the magazines. He must not think that
he can keep normal working hours, for it is truer of the News Editor than of anybody else that he
is always on duty whether at home or in the office.
He must be a good mixer, he must be on the lookout for news all the time, he must learn to scan
the newspaper, and-perhaps the most important asset of all-he must be able to retain his sense of
humour however depressing the situation may be.

Daily Routine of News Editor

His working day begins early. Once he gets to his office there is so much to be one that he has
little time to examine thoroughly his own paper and those of rival managements.
Therefore, he must begin his reading with his early morning cup of tea and continue it on the
way so that when he gets to his desk he has a fair idea of the contents of the morning papers. His
assistant will have arrived earlier and will have prepared a list of his papers, exclusive news
items and a more depressing list, that of the stories which the paper has missed.
He will probably regard the 'scoops' as in the natural order of things, but he will certainly want to
hold an inquest on the news which has been missed, primarily to satisfy himself that there is not
a fault in the paper's methods of news gathering which needs to be eradicated.
Having dealt with the past he must immediately concern himself with the future and launch his
plan of campaign for the next issue. Probably his first task will be to decide whether there is
anything in any of the papers which needs to be followed up.
It used to be Lord Northcliffe's dictum that a first-class news story will always stand up to one or
two 'follow-up' stories, and the reporters can be put on to these right away. Next he must mark
the diary and assign the reporters to attend meetings which ought to be specially covered and not
left to the news agencies.
He must also allot men to the news stories which have cropped up and to enquiries which may
not produce immediate results but which may be the preliminary step towards a first-class article
a few days later. But he must watch his man-power closely. He must not fritter it away and he
must not be left in the position that if later in the morning big news comes in, the reporters' room
is empty.
It is certainly not false economy to have one or two reporters sitting idle; if they are wise they
will spend their free time in reading newspapers, books, or periodicals which can always be
borrowed from the office library.
It is the great thrill of the News Editor's life that he can never guess when the big news will
break. One News Editor certainly will never forget the moment when a pale-faced messenger
tore an item off the tape machine and put on his desk the first news of the death of Lal Bahadur
Shastri. Or another moment when, as he sat quietly in his armchair, the telephone rang in the late
evening and he was informed that his paper's Patna correspondent had been kidnapped.

Morning News Conference of News Editor

Assuming that the morning is a norms' one the News Editor, having allotted the reporters their
assignments turns his attention to the preparations for the morning news conference, for which
he is primarily responsible.
This is generally attended by the Editor or one of his assistants, the Junior Editors and their
assistants, the picture editor, the cartographer, a representative of the City Department, and a man
from the circulating department which should always be kept in close touch with the news as it
arises.
This conference is usually of an informal character when ideas on the day's news and on space
requirements are freely exchanged in preparation for the more important conference which will
be held in the late afternoon.
The News Editor also remains in communication with many of the special writers, who do much
of their work away from the office, and with the heads of other departments. He goes through the
'marked papers' in which the contributions from correspondents are brought to his notice. That is
why it is held that the News Editor should not stick to his desk all the time, because good
contacts are necessary for the maintenance of a first class news service. For that reason, most of
the News Editors of the national newspapers are given an entertainment allowance and most of it
is spent at the luncheon table.

Chief sub editor



The editorial department is made up of many sections. The first sorting of all the incoming news
is done at the general desk, which concerns itself with the front page and the national pages. The
foreign desk, regional desk, city desk, business desk and spots desk take care of their respective
pages. A Chief Sub-editor heads each of these sections. A couple of Chief Sub-editors, who
handle the front page, bear additional responsibility as edition-makers.
What is the role of a Chief Sub-editor? She is the fulcrum of the production operation. Into her
basket land the copy, pictures and ideas, that have been ordered, discussed and provided, and out
of it flows the finished material checked and edited … that will make up the next day’s edition.
(1)
She is primarily answerable for what goes in her section of the paper. She selects news items
(selection), decides on their importance (prioritising), edits or gets them edited (processing),
decides on how the page should look (designing) and decides on the placement of news items on
the page (packaging). She gets the bouquets and faces the brickbats (though often it is more of
the latter).
The job of a Chief Sub-editor combines a piece-by-piece planning operation with quality control
of the material that is being processed. It is an arduous and unrelenting task.(2)
The Deputy News Editor from above and Sub-editors from below assist her. Her role in the
editorial production of a newspaper is influenced by a number of factors, some of which are:
how newsy the day is, space available for news after what the advertisements have taken up,
volume of information available at a point of time, how close it is to the deadline,etc.
Selection: In fact, it is all about rejection. Of all the news that a Chief Sub-editor pours though, a
very small percentage finally makes to print. The real news hides among a huge pile of non-
news. The news is not only that is new, but should also be relevant to the readers from the point
of view of proximity, influence and interest. "Fifty people killed in a road accident in Uganda" is
no news for a Bangalore reader compared to "Six injured in a road accident on M.G. Road in
Bangalore".
Prioritising: After a Chief Sub-editor has identified a dozen or two items for the page, the next
step is putting them in the order of importance. This is often a very subjective process. What
looks important to me may not be for you. Newspapers themselves differ in the level of
importance they attach to events, persons and places. What was unimportant at 6 pm may
develop into a major story by 10 pm. Similarly, what looked important earlier in the day, may be
overtaken and knocked off the front page later.
Processing: This is what we call editing, which is commonly mistaken by laypersons as
censoring, which has a far negative connotation. After selecting and prioritising items, a Chief
Sub-editor slots them on a page and gets them edited by Senior Sub-editors and Sub-editors.
Editing involves ensuring accuracy of facts, correct language and lucid narrative. Items are
trimmed to fit the space. Sub-editors seek clarifications from reporters in case of doubts. They
also arrange photographs or graphics that can add value to the news item.
Designing: Once the Chief Sub-editor has a good idea of what she has to offer the reader, she
gets down to designing the page. It is a rough outline of what items should go on which pages,
depending on importance and reader-interest. It gives a general shape to the next day’s paper.
Packaging: Then comes the actual making of a page. Sometimes a Chief Sub-editor herself does
it or gets juniors to do it. Here a number of visual and aesthetic elements are taken into account
without compromising the intrinsic value of the news item. It is a tough balancing act. No one
will have a second look at a badly made page even though the items on it are highly readable.
Conversely, a neatly made page should not be just that, it should have matter to read. It is easier
said than done. A lot of further editing and rearranging of items have to be done on the page to
make it good, content and look-wise.

A Typical Day


In the morning a Chief Sub-editor goes through other newspapers besides her own, and compares
and contrasts one another. She keeps track of current affairs through the day. She is in the office
by evening. Different newspapers have their own shift timings. She goes through agency copies
and reports of her own correspondents, and updates herself. Around 7 pm, there is an editorial
meeting chaired by the editor and attended the News Editor, the Chief Sub-editor who is in
charge of the edition, and heads of different departments like sports, business, city bureau etc.
The meeting discusses the menu for the next day’s edition, subject to changes due to later
developments.
The Chief Sub-editors then select news items, get them edited and supervise making of pages.
The pages get over roughly between 10 pm and midnight, they are checked and sent to the press.
The Chief Sub-editor has to be constantly on the lookout for unexpected developments in the
night. In such a case, she incorporates and updates the breaking news and sends a revised front
page that is taken by "stopping the press". Her day gets over by around 2 am.
News Value


Journalism is much more than just talking to a few persons, writing a report and publishing it.
Good journalism is not a mechanical process of filling up space on a newspaper. The fact that the
press is seen as Fourth Estate, on a par with the other three, viz., Legislature, Executive and
Judiciary, entails upon it a great amount social responsibility.
Gilbert Ryle, professor of metaphysical philosophy at Oxford University, who has written about
interpretation of words, says there is an intellectual process of identifying news, gathering it and
analysing it. He says, "The journalist has to filter the decisions through an individual
understanding of the audience to whom the writing is addressed, the priorities of the publisher,
and their own beliefs about the role of journalism in a society."(3)
A journalist not only disseminates news but also helps mould public opinion. In a democracy
governments come and go based on the public opinion of politicians created by the mass media.
Similarly, major policy decisions are taken, amended or even annulled. In the book, Press and
Foreign Policy, scholar Barnard Cohen identifies three roles of the press: observer, participant
and catalyst. He says the world looks different to different people depending upon the map that is
drawn for them by writers, editors and publishers. It is in the daily drawing and redrawing of the
map that the actions of journalism are revealed. (4)
A journalist should have the acumen to sense news. Anything that is new, interesting, exciting or
out of ordinary may technically be news. But a Chief Sub-editor while selecting and prioritising
news items, and packaging them on a page has to keep in mind the social context and relevance
of the news. And, this responsibility is all the more great in a developing country like India.
There has to be a sustained focus on development journalism, which should not be a casualty in
today’s techno-driven craze for instant gratification.
Summary

A Chief Sub-editor plays a pivotal role in a newspaper. She has to be up-to-date with current
affairs. She should have a good knowledge of the language. Her task involves identifying,
selecting, prioritising and displaying news on her newspaper. Through her work, she not only
communicates the day’s events to the people but also interprets them from a social, economic or
political angle. She is responsible for the contents and look of her newspaper.

The Sub-Editor

A Sub-Editor is a presenter of news and reports. He has a lawyer's analytical approach and quick-
mindedness which enable him to understand a story quickly and come to the core of the matter.

He has to glean important points from the mass of material sent by the news reporters and
condense them, giving a shape in a logical and interesting way.
He has to give suitable head-lines and where necessary, revise and condense the material to suit
the available space. This is rather a difficult task which requires skill, flair for writing and
mastery over the language. More often than not, a sub-editor has to deal with the reports of
different reporters.

In such cases, he has to get the main points from all the reports and then present them in a logical
and interesting narrative. All these things have got to be done in time in order to reach the press
before it is too late. Sub-editors often specialise in a particular field, such as foreign news, sports,
films, commerce, etc.

His working hours are more regular than those of a reporter. He knows beforehand when he has
to report for duty and when he is going to have free time. His working hours are more or less like
those of any other office worker with the only difference that he has to work in different shifts,
starting roughly from 10 A.M. and ending upto 2-3 in the small hours of the morning ; if he is
working for an evening edition, his work my start at 7 A.M.

Editorial writing and its importance

Meeting with an editorial board can help your message receive the attention it deserves.
Outreach to editorial boards can result not only in editorials that take a progressive stance on an
issue; they can also affect news coverage throughout the paper. The single best way to influence
the content of editorials is conducting a briefing with editorial boards, although sending materials
and following up by phone can also be helpful. Opinion editorials (op-eds) are an extremely
powerful and cost-effective way to both educate a large number of readers about your issues, and
influence policymakers. Policymakers and their aides read op-eds, which is why securing
favorable editorials and meeting with the editorial board on your issue is essential, particularly
for campaigns targeting legislation. Good editorials also help establish an organization as an
authority.

1) Do your research: Review the paper's stance and coverage on your issue first. The editorial
board will appreciate your familiarity, knowledge and ability to discuss angles that haven't been
covered yet.

2) Target the right paper and writer: Most editorial boards have one head editor and a handful of
writers, each focusing on issues like the environment, health and policy. If it’s a national story,
you may be able to work with the appropriate editorial writers to find local angles.

3) Get to know the gatekeeper: The editorial board and some individual writers have assistants.
Introduce yourself and get as much information as you can about the best way to approach them.
4) Send a formal pitch: This 1-2 page letter should clearly state the editorial position you want
the board to take and communicate. Tips: create a sense of timeliness and urgency, and use
credible spokespersons. If your spokespeople are not well known, establish their background and
what makes them experts.

5) Provide persuasive documentation to bolster your arguments: Include in your information at

one or more fact sheets that immediately highlight your issue and lay out the facts that support
your perspective. Encourage editorial boards to review reports and background information that
detail recommendations on the issue. Only use documents with solid analysis behind them.

6) Be persistent: Follow up with friendly phone calls, suggest meeting dates, and send
background information by mail with a personal note. It can take a couple months to secure an
editorial. As with reporters, always be pleasant no matter what they write.

Letter to Editor

Guide to Letter-Writing
Sometimes the pen or word processor really
is mightier than the sword and you don't have to be
Shakespeare! Writing letters to newspapers, businesses, and legislators is
an easy, effective way to help animals.

Here's how...

Letters to the Editor

When you write letters to the editors

of local newspapers instead of writing to just one person, you reach
thousands! And it's easier than you might think.
·
• Read local papers and magazines for fuel for letters. Watch for articles, ads, or lette
rs that mention
animals.
• Letters don't have to be rebuttals. Circus in
town? Noticing a lot of strays? Or use the calendar for
inspiration: At Easter, tell readers why they shouldn't buy bunnies. On Mother's Day, remind
your
community of the animals whose babies are taken from them on factory farms.
• Write on good news, as well as bad. Thank the paper for its coverage of an anti-
fur protest or for
running profiles of animals available for adoption at shelters.
• Be brief! Sometimes one short, pithy paragraph is enough--
tries to stay under 300 words (about one
typed page). Editors are less likely to print long letters.
• Type, if possible. Otherwise, print legibly. Be sure to use correct grammar and spelli
ng, and remember
to have it proofread.
• Make sure you include your name, address, and telephone number
in your letter. Some newspapers
verify authorship before printing letters.
• Look for opportunities to write op-
ed pieces for local papers. These are longer articles of about 500 -
800 words that summarize an issue, develop
an argument, and propose a solution. Send the article to
the Editorial Page editor.
• Yo u c a n a l s o w r i t e ( o r c a l l ) t e l e v i s i o n a n d r a d i o s t a t i o n s t o
protest glorification of animal abuse or to
compliment them on a program well done.
• Yo u c a n a l s o w r i t e ( o r c a l l ) t e l e v i s i o n a n d r a d i o s t a t i o n s t o
protest glorification of animal abuse or to
compliment them on a program well done.

Book Review

Book reviews evaluate recently published books. They offer a brief description of the
text's key points and often provide a short appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses
of the book. People often confuse book reviews with book reports, but both are not
identical. Book reports commonly describe what happens in the work, book reviews
provides an analytical insights about a work. Book reviews are often published in
magazines, newspapers, and academic journals.
Book reviews typically range from 500-750 words. They may be sometimes longer or
shorter.
Book reviews aim to give readers a sneak peek at what a book is like, whether or not
the reviewer enjoyed it, and details on purchasing the book.

Tips for writing a book review:

Read the book thoroughly. But before starting to read, consider the elements you will
need to include in your review. These are: information about the author, his/her past
works, awards, writing style etc; genre of the book - whether it is a fiction, nonfiction,
romance, poetry, youth fiction, etc.?; intended audience of the book; purpose of the
book; title of the book and how it is related to the content of the book; preface/
introduction and table contents; book cover.
While reading the book, take notes on key book's key points, characters, and/or
themes.
While writing the review, you can start with a short summary or background of the
work, but do not give too much detail in the start itself. Most of the reviews limit the
readers to one or two chapters of the book or lead the reader to important plot or
point of the book. The final part of the review should include your opinion of the work.
These are just general guidelines. Writing styles are constantly changing these days.
Hence, you should try to read published book reviews as much as you can.

Film Review

Reviewing films, documentaries and performing arts is interesting. You need to have
deep interest in the task. Writing reviews is an art and only a few people manage to
master it. You should regularly read reviews by famous writers. This will help you
develop your own style and understand the nuances

Here are some tips that may be helpful:

Know your subject: In the digital age, everyone is a reviewer. You may have read politicians like
Arvind Kejriwal writing on films. So, to beat the competition, you should know your subject
better than the rest. To write with authority, learn everything you can about your area of interest -
be it films performing arts or documentaries. If possible, you can also take courses on history of
films/documentary or performing arts and read as many books as you can. You don't need to a
director to review a film, documentary or performing art. But you should be an interested and
well-informed layman, at least. Read other critics: Try to read and analyse other established
reviewers. It won't hurt you in the long run.

Have your own opinions: As a reviewer, you shouldn't be afraid of having your own strong views
about the subject of review. Take strong stands, with authority. Also try to avoid misleading
words like "I" or "In my opinion" Provide background: Provide your readers with some
background on the subject. For example, if you're reviewing a movie, give an outline of the plot
but also inform readers about the director, actor or the screenwriter and their past works.
Never spoil the ending: Never reveal the end of the film or documentary you are reviews. Leave
something for the audience. Know your readers: You should know about your readers. Whether
they college goers or some grown-up intellectuals or just the laymen. Adjust your writing style
accordingly.

Newspaper Style Sheet

Consistency – in style is essential for a well-edited newspaper. Each newspaper should have a
style sheet containing rules that must be carefully observed by all its staff members.
A. Basic Instructions to Reporters. Some basic reminders to reporters are:
1. Ensure accuracy of all stories. Verify your facts before including them in your report.
2. Verify the spelling of all names.
3. Verify all dates and numbers.
 4. Gather all facts of a story. A good story is sometimes ruined by the omission of one
important fact which should have been secured. Do not hesitate to return to a source of
information for additional facts.
5. In reporting about a meeting, devote the first paragraphs to the actions or decisions taken
by the meeting rather than the fact that the meeting was held or when it was held or the
name of the organization holding it. The rule applies to an advance story on a meeting.
6. Be definite and specific.
7. Use the active voice instead of the passive except when the person or thing acted upon is
of more importance than the agent of action.
8. Do not open a story with a listing of names.
9. Avoid beginning sentences with “It is,” “It was,” “There is,” “There was,” “There were.”
“When,” “it” and “there” are used merely as substitutes for the real subject. The first
sentence of a news story ought to contain the important elements.
10. Do not editorialize. Write only the facts and/or quote the opinion of others.
11. Write short paragraphs; long paragraphs make a printed page look dull and uninteresting.
12. Write stories neatly. If corrections are made, they should be clear. If necessary, rewrite the
story rather than submit one with numerous corrections.
B. Use of Titles:
1. Use “Miss” with the name of an unmarried woman unless another title is more
appropriate. In first reference it is preferable to use the woman’s first name as well as the
last.
For example, at first mention in a story write: Miss Maria Katigbak. Subsequently, she should be
referred to as Miss Katigbak.
Some newspapers use “Ms.” In reference to mature woman, whether married or single.
2. In first reference to mature men, use “Mr.” with the first name and last name, unless
another title is more appropriate. In further references to him, use the appropriate title and
the last name.
3. Avoid using long and cumbersome titles before a name. Do not write: Chief of Police
Romeo Morales. Instead, write: Romeo Morales, chief of police.
4. Always capitalize a title when it precedes a name: Superintendent Caballero. Do not
capitalize titles that follow the name: P.T. Caballero, superintendent of schools.
5. In reference to a Catholic priest, use at first mention the form, “Rev. Fr. Reynaldo
Arquiza.” On second or succeeding references, use “Rev. Arquiza” or “Fr. Arquiza.”
6. Upon the first mention of a person in a story, unless that person’s position in the
community is very well known, it is best to follow the name with a short descriptive
phrase or title that will identify him:
Example: Arthur Bariuad, president of the San Lorenzo Homeowners Association.
7. Use the title “Mrs.” before the name of a married woman, unless another title is more
appropriate. For example, a woman judge or a military officer may prefer a title related to
her position. Some married women may prefer “Ms.”
8. Avoid using a single initial; use both initials or the first name. Write: D.Y. Caparas or
Democrito Caparas. Do not write D. Caparas.
 9. Titles are abbreviated when used before a person’s full name or before his first name’s
initial and his surname. Titles are spelled out when only the surname follow: Example:
Prof. Romulo Buenviaje; Prof. R.T. Buenviaje; but Professor Bueviaje.
10. The titles Dr., Mr. and Mrs. Are always abbreviated. But the following titles are not
abbreviated: president, secretary, treasurer, director, governor, attorney-general,
ambassador, consul-general, minister, mayor, vice mayor, councilor.
11. Congressman (spelled out, not “Cong.”) is used with a person’s surname, as in
Congressman Dorado. When the full name is given, use the abbreviated title: Rep.
Hermis Dorado.
C. Spelling
1. Avoid all abbreviations except a few standard ones that are understood by the average
reader of your paper, and post this list where copyreaders and reporters will always find it
available. Abide by the list and accept no other abbreviations.
2. Always spell out the names of days of the week. (Ex. Wednesday, not Wed.)
3. In giving an exact date, spell out the names of months that have less than five letters;
abbreviate the names of months spelled with five letters or more. (Ex: June 15; Nov. 9)
When the name of the month stands alone without a day, spell it out. (Ex: The war broke
out in January, not in Jan.)
4. Spell out “fort,” “port,” and “mount”: Fort Santiago, Port Area, Mount Apo, Mount
Pinatubo.
5. Spell out the names of provinces and cities: Cebu, Cebu City, Ormoc City.
6. Spell out all Christian names such as Juan, Carlos, Roman instead of using abbreviations.
7. Spell out “street,” “avenue,” when used with the name of the street: Ninth Street, Rizal
Avenue, Port Area, Manila.
8. Avoid British spellings; use honor, not honour; organize not organise.
9. Some papers prefer employe to employees: cigaret, to cigarette, traveled to travelled. The
rule is: the simpler, the better.
10. Hyphens should be dropped in nominative forms particularly in verb-preposition
combinations such as: cleanup, getaway, kickoff, etc. However, there are exceptions like
cast-off, cave-in, head-on, stand-in.
11. If in doubt, consult the dictionary.
D. Quotations
1. Quote (i.e., use quotation marks for) the names of books, short stories, plays, songs,
television programs, poems, motion pictures and operas; also capitalize the first word and
other words in the title. Examples: “All the President’s Men”, “The Old Man and the
Sea”, and “Straight From the Shoulder.”
2. Do not quote the names of newspapers or yearbooks; the titles of pictures, statues, or
other works of art; the names of ships; the names of horses, dogs or other animals.
3. Repeat the quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph in a story where a
quotation from one person or book runs from one paragraph into the next; do not put
quotation marks at the end of the paragraph until the end of the whole quotation is
reached.
 4. In general, put the comma and the period inside the quotation marks, whether the comma
or the period belongs to the whole sentence or to the part quoted.
The comma and the period used to be placed either inside the quotation marks or outside in
accordance with the meaning of the sentence. Modern usage has decreed that, regardless of the
meaning, these two marks go inside; and the standard works of English composition, such as
Woolley and Scott’s New Handbook of Composition, teach this usage.
Example: “I am going home,” he said. “My Fair Lady.”
5. Place the question mark or the exclamation point inside the quotations if the mark of
punctuation belongs to the material included within the quotation marks; if it belongs to
the entire sentence rather than to the part quoted, then place the mark outside the
quotations.
Example: Have you seen “The Deer Hunter”? He asked, “Have you been in town?”
6. When a semicolon or a colon comes at the end of the quoted matter, the mark of
punctuation always goes outside the quotation marks.
E. Use of Numbers
1. Never begin a sentence with a figure. If the number is the most important element in the
sentence, then begin the sentence with the number, but spell it out.
Example: Ninety-three persons were drowned. In the flood, 93 persons were drowned.
2. Spell out numbers less than ten except:
a. In giving the hour of the day: Write 8 o’clock; or 8 p.m., 7:30 a.m. Do not write: eight
o’clock (except at the beginning of a sentence). Never use ciphers when giving an
exact hour: Do not write: 8:00 o’clock. Instead, write: 8 o’clock or 8 pm.
b. In the statement of a definite sum of money: Wrtie: P5. Do not write: five pesos
(except at the beginning of a sentence).
Do not use ciphers to show an even amount of pesos with no centavos; omite the cipehers: P6.
To express a sum of money less than P1, except when the word, “centavos”: 10 centavos.
c. In the statement of ages: always use figures, except when the age comes at the
beginning of a sentence. Ex. He was 7 years old.
d. In stating the days of the month: Write: Jan. 5. Never use “the,” “rd” “nd” and similar
expressions after a date. Do not write Jan. 5th.
e. In expressing dimensions and measurements in which two or more units of
measurement are mentioned:
Example: He drove the distance in 5 hours, 20 minutes, 15 seconds. The closet is 9 feet by
15 feet.
f. In expressing a series of numbers, some of which are more than 10 and others, less, it
is preferable to use figures for all of the numbers
Example: From his pocket he drew forth 4
guavas, 3 rubber bands, 28 soiled marbles, and 5 pieces of paper clips.
g. In the use of percentages and degrees:
Example: The interest charged was 8 percent. The thermometer registered 5 degrees above
zero.
h. In statistical or technical matter.
 3. Spell our approximate numbers:”Approximately one hundred persons were present at the
banquet.” But use figures for some of money, even when these sums are approximate:
“Approximately P100 was collected.”
4. Spell out numbers of centuries: Twentieth Century.
5. Use figures for sessions of congress and of the legislature: 47th Congress
6. Use figures for numbers of military bodies: 121st infantry Division.
7. Use figures for all numbers of 10 or more the usage of which is not governed by one of
the preceding rules.
Examples: 19th Street Fifth Street.
Capitalization
Capitalize:
1. The names of days of the week
2. The names of months
3. The names of centuries: Tenth Century, Nineteenth Century.
4. All proper names of persons, animals, objects, or places: Juan Carlos, Rizal
Park
5. All titles when they precede the name: Superintendent Juan Caballero,
Captain Romeo Morales.
6. The names of streets, avenues, and boulevards: Acacia Street, Rizal Avenue,
Roxas Boulevard
7. The first word of a sentence, the first word of a complete line of poetry, and
generally the first word after a colon if the material that follows the colon is
an independent clause.
8. The principal words I the titles of books, plays, lectures, stories, etc, and the
first word in such titles. Capitalize im such titles prepositions of more than
four letters: “The Man Without a Country”; “The Man with the Hoe.”
9. The exact name of any club, association, fraternity, sorority, organization,
school bureau, library or branch library, school, Church, company, society,
league, union, scholastic organization, corporation, mine, mill, and bank.
Examples: National Press Club, Alpha Phi Omega, Ermita Baptist Church,
League of Filipino Students, etc. –Make sure that the exact title of each
organization is used on first reference to that organization in the story.
10. References to specific courses: History 1, Commercial Law. Etc. Do not
capitalize a general reference to a broad subject, as in: He specializes in the
study of history, mathematics and chemistry. (Exception: when academic
subject comes from a proper noun. Example: He enjoyed his studies in
Spanish.)
11. References to one of the four classes of students, when the word “class” is
used: Do not capitalize when the word “class” is not used. Example: “The
Sophomore Class will hold a picnic.” “The sophomores will hold a picnic.”
12. References to school buildings or other buildings is used: Claro M. Recto
Building, PUP.
 13. References to administrative offices: Principal’s Office ; Attendance Office;
Superintendent’s Office. In general, do not capitalize references to other
rooms within the school building: high school auditorium, cafeteria, manual
training room, assembly hall, locker room, etc.
14. References to particular departments: Manual Training Department;
Commercial Department; Spanish Department.
15. Names of holidays and special weeks: Independence day, Thanksgiving Day,
Good Friday, Education Week, Book Week, etc.
16. Names of races or nationalities: Indian, Chinese, Caucasian, etc.
17. Names of basketball teams and other athletic clubs: Shell, San Miguel, Presto.
18. References to the Bible or books of the Bible or the Deity.
19. References to sessions of Congress or the Legislature, to military bodies, and
political divisions; Example: 25th Congress, Liberal Party, Christian
Democrats.
Use of punctuation
1. Use a comma as described below
a) To set off a proper name used in direct address: Example: “You will get good
grades, Miguel, when you earn them.”
b) To set off a title when it follows a name. Example” Mr. Bert Lavares, a chief
police, will retire on August 1.
c) To set off appositives – identifying or descriptive words or phrases following
a noun: Example: The Journalism Class vacationed in the city of Baguio, the
land of eternal spring. Accompanying their classes was their professor Julius
Fortuna.
d) To separate units in geographical location or date, when expressed as follows:
Example: The Polytechnic University of the Philippines is located at Sta.
Mesa, Manila. He arrived home after his trip from Cebu City on
Wednesday, June 13, 1990.
e) Generally, to set off a dependent clause that comes at the beginning of a
sentence: Example: When the clock strikes twelve, the noon-hour bells will
ring..
f) To set apart elements in a series, including use of a comma before and in
separating the last two elements in series. Example: In the fruit basket were
two oranges, three apples, and a dozen bananas.
g) When two adjectives modify the same noun, they should be set apart by a
comma if they coordinate in thought. Example: Pedro proved to be a
hardworking, conscientious student.
h) To set apart a nonrestrictive clause: Example: 1. She confined her critical
problem to Dean Carpio, who is known to be a helpful counselor. 2. The old
Municipal Auditorium, which is to be demolished next week, was constructed
during World War II.
i) To indicate separation between any sentence elements that might be
misinterpreted if read together without punctuation. Example: 1. Mr. Silverio
 moved to QUezon City in 1945. Ever since, he has beem running his own
business. 2. Outside, the house appeared sturdy and strong. Inside, the walls
were crumbling.
2. Use a semicolon as described below:
a) Between clauses of a compound sentence that are joined by however,
nevertheless, moreover, accordingly, in fact and therefore. Examples: 1.
Millions of pesos have been spent in fertilizing the vast farmlands in the
valley; however, fertilizing, apparently, has done nothing to increase the yield
of corn per acre. 2. In the last two tears, television movies have steadily
decreased the portrayal of violence; moreover, paperback novels on the best
seller lists have also demonstrated that public taste is turning away from
violence.
b) Ordinarily, to separate two clauses of a compound sentence joined by and
when the clauses are internally punctuated by commas. Example: Members of
the audience , children as well as adults, will be given a free illustrated
booklet; and this booklet will contain a list of toys representing characters in
the play.
c) To separate elements in a series when one or more of those elements are
internally punctuated by commas. Example: Students serving on the
committee are Lourdes Aquino, sophomore; Sajid Galang, junior; and Alice
Sabile, freshman.
3. Use a period a described below:
a) After complete declarative or imperative sentence. Example: The first
revolutionary newspaper to be printed in the Philippines was the La
Solidaridad.
b) After elements in most abbreviations, Example Ph.D. degree, M.D., Mr., Mrs.
But do not use the period after initials that stand doe well-known organizations, companies,
sports teams, government services. Examples: AEAN, WHO, LP, NP, PBA, GSIS, SSS
4. Use a colon as described below:
a) After a word, phrase, or sentence introducing a list or a long quotation or a
summary of statements. Example: Included in the will was a list of the assets
of the corporation, as follows: (following is a list of various properties.)
5. Use a question mark as described below:
a) To mark the end of a direct inquiry but not at the end of an indirect question.
Example: He asked ,”Where did the man go?” He asked where the man went.
b) To follow a word or phrase intended as an inquiry. Example: The teacher was
sure that something could be done to stimulate the interest of her students in
their class. But what?

Additional Rules:
1. Use “percent: not the symbol “%” in the body text. The symbol should be used only in
tabulations. Use the symbol “&” only in proper names like Elizalde & Co., or A&W
Beerhouse
2. When it is necessary to mention a person’s profession, say lawyer Bert Castro or engineer
Rogelio Garcia; not Atty. Bert Casrto or Engr. Rogelio Garcia
3. Some foreign names stand singly; don’t invent a first name. Example: Suharto of
Indonesia. Most Indonesians don’t have first names.
4. In Chinese, the first name is the surname. Example: Chairman Mao Tze-Tung. In
mentioning his name in the seceding sentences, write chairman Mao, not chairman Tung.
5. In forming the plural of military titles, the rule is to add “s” to the second word. Example:
Brigadier Generals; lieutenant colonel, etc. exception: sergeants major, not
sergeant majors.
6. In forming the plural for civilian titles, add the “s” to the first word like consuls-general,
postmasters general; or secretaries general.
 Print Journalism
102
Unit-4

Editing:definition

What is editing? Why is editing done? Who does editing? These are some of the questions that
come to the minds of beginners in the field of editing. Let us try and find answers to these basic
questions. Editing is the process of improving the hurriedly written news stories and other write-
ups in to readable shape. Editing in newspaper terminology is called copyediting, sub editing or
subbing. The term copy editor is used in the U.S.A. while the term sub editor is used in the UK
and many other countries including India. Editing is done with specific motives of checking and
improving the following: Punctuation, Spelling, Sentence Structure, Subject and Verb
Agreement, Proper Word Use, Clarity, Point of View, Redundancies, Inconsistencies, Dialogue,
Flow, and Format. In simpler terms, editing is done to improve news stories grammatically,
structurally, style-wise, factually, and in terms of readability. And sub editors or copy editors do
the editing. It is often thought that editors do editing. No, the editor does not do editing. The sub-
editor is the unsung craftsman who works hard to improve the write-ups of the reporters. And the
reporters’ names appear with the news stories. Sub editors do not get any credit for their hard
work. While reporters get the entire credit and acknowledgement in the form of bylines,
accolades, applause, appreciation and even awards, the sub editors toil away in the newsroom.
Reporters and correspondents take to the center stage while sub editors man the backstage.
Editing, or sub editing, as it is popularly known, includes many activities. These are arranging,
reducing, adding, translating, selecting, checking and adapting of news and other materials for
publication. COPY: Copy is nothing but written pieces - news stories, articles, features, etc.-
coming to a newspaper's newsroom from different sources - reporters, correspondents, stringers,
freelancers, news agencies, feature agencies, assigned writers, etc. With newer technologies like
telex, fax, teletext, modem, etc., more copy reaches newsrooms more easily today. These need to
be screened to select the necessary stories. In addition to processing copy, writing headlines and
moving copy to the production department, sub editors are also involved with certain aspects of
production like composing, layout etc. which is usually done on the computer. Automation has
made the job of sub editors easier. But computers and other machines cannot replace sub editors
(proof readers and layout artists are almost extinct now). This is because of certain talents that
sub-editors have including the ability to edit copy and writing headlines. These two abilities
require sound judgment, scholarliness, varied exposure and experience, memory, motivation,
curiosity, imagination and skepticism.

The objectives of editing include

(1) detection and removal of factual, grammatical, and typographical errors,

(2) clarification of obscure passages,

(3) elimination of parts not suitable for the targeted audience, and

(4)proper sequencing to achieve a smooth, unbroken flow of narrative.

The principles of Good News Editing are:

• Accuracy,
• Attribution,
• Balance and Fairness,
• Brevity,
• Clarity,
• Readability,
• Human interest, and
• Sharp observation.

ACCURACY: The sub editor should be obsessed with accuracy because one mistake can
destroy the reputation of a newspaper or magazine, and it takes just fraction of a second to make
one. Checking and crosschecking names, figures, and verifying facts are of utmost importance.
Always attribute the news to the source so that readers can judge its credibility. “ A highly placed
Defense Personnel, Finance Ministry Sources”, etc. are attributions that help readers to arrive at
their own conclusions, while steering clear of the suspicion that the reporter is giving his own
version of the story.

BALANCE AND FAIRNESS: Balance and fairness form the foundation of good editing.
Balance is giving both sides of the picture, while fairness is not taking sides. It also means not
providing support to political parties, institutions, communities or individuals, etc. through the
columns of the newspaper. It is the attribute of a professional reporter and the duty of a sub
editor to implement it.
BREVITY: Brevity is a great virtue in journalism appreciated by readers and editors alike. It is
telling a story, as it should be, without beating around the bush. It saves time and space and wins
applause when consummated to perfection.

CLARITY: Clarity is the ability to think clearly and translate it into paper - a quality that can
take one to the higher echelons of media hierarchy. Readability has a bearing on sentence length
and simple and forthright manner of expression.

READABILITY: The average length of a sentence should not exceed 18 words, which is
standard. It is not easy to read a sentence with more than 18 words. Beyond 25 words the
sentence would be very difficult to read, though some accomplished authors have far exceeded
the standard and yet remained readable because of their craftsmanship. But beginners are advised
to stay out of long-winding and complicated sentence constructions. The best way is to write
news stories using simple words, short and simple sentences.

HUMAN INTEREST: Using a style that arouses human interest is what the craft of editing is
all about. Sub editors should see the events from the readers’ point of view and write the news
stories keeping the reader ever in mind along with his hopes, fears and aspirations. The sub
editor should identify himself with the proverbial common man who does not exist but represents
the silent majority whom the journalist is duty-bound to defend and protect.

SHARP OBSERVATION: Sharp observation is the hallmark of an ace communicator,

particularly in the field of journalism. It recreates reality, imparts dynamism to reporting,
heightens the reading pleasure and finetunes readers’ perception.



Advent of Electronic editing

Electronic editing means editing on screen with a software program that can track the editing
changes and provide an edit trail for review. The editor usually has an option of printing a copy
of the manuscript showing every alteration, only substantive changes, or only the revised
version. Decisions regarding this "paper trail" are generally made between the author and editor:
some authors want to see every change; others prefer clean, flowing copy.

Selecting projects for on-screen editing


The best candidates for electronic editing are:

• Manuscript with no room for editing (single-spaced or with minimal margins);

• Manuscript riddled with handwritten inserts;

• Scannable manuscript without corresponding disks;

• Manuscript needing restructure or heavy editing.

The straightforward manuscript that you expect will be lightly edited presents few problems—
whether edited conventionally or on screen. Electronic editing offers limited additional benefit.

Poor candidates for on-screen editing are manuscripts in disciplines requiring frequent use of
interlinear symbols unavailable in standard word processing programs (e.g., chemistry,
linguistics, logic), or ones with elements that cannot be directly translated into typesetting
programs (e.g., projects with built-up equations or those having lots of tables).

Benefits of electronic editing


A major advantage to editing on screen is that alterations can be seen, approved, and put into the
electronic file before any typesetting costs are incurred.

• Early use of all the files ensures that the disk is usable and complete.

• Authors will not have to learn the shorthand of editing marks.

• Early review of the file by editors and author reduces the need for subsequent
proofreading and correcting by proofreaders, author, and editors.

• Confirming the input at an early stage can be especially valuable if the author will be
unavailable later in the production process.

• Editors do their best work when not hampered by a physically disastrous manuscript.
 • Electronic manipulation is a major improvement over cutting and pasting on projects that
require heavy editing or significant rewriting.

The bottom line


When editors edit electronically, they usually complete their task by reviewing the work
approved by the author, removing queries and unapproved alterations, and reviewing the coded
disk for composition.

Part of the advantage of having editors edit on screen is the added value they provide by
bringing their trained eyes and ears, as well as their familiarity with the project, to the electronic
file.

Because of the editor's skills, compositors do not need to make alterations and can bypass the
input department. Pages flow quickly and there is no need to proofread. Weeks can thus be saved
in page makeup and generation.

Cost is another major benefit when using a corrected electronic file. Although people who edit
on disk generally charge more than their paper-and-pencil colleagues, compositors may charge
less when they can run pages from clean disks—reducing the cost of composition by 10 percent
on a book with light corrections to as much as 35 percent on one with heavy alterations.

In an attempt to reduce the cost of correcting the file, a publisher may turn to a service bureau
instead of the compositor or the editor. This masks accountability for the changes being made.
The publisher cannot guarantee the work of this third party and therefore cannot ask for the best
"clean file" discount from the compositor.

Occasionally a publisher may turn to the author to input the editing as the manuscript is being
reviewed. This is an especially dangerous path because it diverts the author's attention from
manuscript approval, it allows the author to insert unedited changes, it destroys the paper trail,
and it forces the publisher to carefully review the work again to confirm that all changes are
consistent and appropriate—an additional step easily avoided by better alternatives available.
The publisher cannot guarantee the work of the author and therefore cannot ask for the best
discount from the compositor.

The major benefit of editing online is that the editor can input changes with minimal cost and
delay. If the editor is not able to input approved alterations, the compositor can still provide this
task with skill, experience, speed, and accountability.

At Generic, we are happy to advise on the suitability of a particular project for electronic editing
and to translate disks for editing on screen into whatever software is most convenient for the
editor.

If the manuscript does not have an electronic file, we can scan a clean manuscript or keyboard
a messy one. Traditionally this is the first stage of the composition process, but it can also be the
first stage in getting a manuscript ready for editing on screen and a good way to control the
schedule and costs of your books.

Responsibilities of a Copy Editor

A copy editor is responsible for an initial round of proofreading to ensure that written text is
concise, consistent and both grammatically and factually correct. Those in this position also
ensure that each sentence is easy to read and that concepts expressed are in a logical, sequential
manner. The position typically involves working at a magazine, newspaper, website, corporate
communications department or advertising agency. It is a key part of an editorial team comprised
of writers and editors that may also include proofreaders and fact-checkers. The job frequently
requires working under intense deadline pressure without compromising standards.

Follows Style Guidelines and Manuals

Copy editors scrupulously adhere to in-house style guides that include an organization's preferred
usage and the spelling of certain words. For example, those writing marketing copy for a tea
company may be asked to use the word "sip" as opposed to "drink." It's the copy editor's
responsibility to make the change if the writer does not comply. In addition to the in-house guide,
reference sources often include the Associated Press Style Guide, and the Chicago Manual of
Style.

Gives Suggestions

After reviewing copy -- whether it's on a soda can, in a newspaper story or a commercial script --
the copy editor serves as the arbiter and makes adjustments as needed. If copy is poorly
constructed, he confers with the writer and asks for revisions. In addition, the job involves
writing headlines and reviewing photos to ensure captions match the image -- most notably that
they include the correct spelling of each name. During staff meetings, copy editors are called to
offer advice aimed at improving the efficiency and accuracy of the overall editorial process.

Meet Deadlines

Making certain that deadlines are met is a daily duty of most copy editors. Production schedules
are set in advance. It is crucial that everyone involved in the process stays on schedule to keep
the work flow moving as planned. For example, if a copy editor takes longer than the time
allotted, the writer will need more time to make revisions. Consequently, the production
department may not have sufficient time to meet the deadline for shipping the completed project.

Checks Facts

Few organizations have designated fact-checkers, so it is the copy editor's responsibility to

ensure that all content is factually correct. This means paying particular attention to small details
like significant historical dates, state capitals and the attribution of famous quotes. There may be
an ample amount of reference material in books and online to verify these facts, but looking up
information takes time. A good copy editor simply knows most of it off the top of his head.
Who says newspaper comic strips are dying? Cartoons make an
integral part of newspapers, conveying messages or expressing public
opinion immaculately. They are also considered as the pictorial
overture or introduction to any key event or personality and the
readers love them.
 (Image Courtesy: SatiricaPolitica)

Newspapers cartoons originated in Italy, followed by Germany and

France.
(Image Courtesy: Huffington Post)
There are various types of cartoons:

Pocket cartoon

It is a single-column cartoon having a fixed place on the first page of

newspapers. Pocket cartoons deal with something related to the life of
common people. They may be compassionate, humorous, or satirical.
Such types of cartoons usually contain a single idea or perception.
They convey to the readers an added message or information that is
not provided by the articles or news stories.

(Image Courtesy: Sepponet)

Political cartoon



It is also known as an editorial cartoon, which deals with contemporary

political developments or events. Political cartoons are traditionally three-
column cartoons. They are not always humorous, but rather more critical or
sarcastic. Usually, such cartoons appear on page 1, depending on the
significance or impact of the event.
 (Image Courtesy: Pinterest)

Strip cartoon

They are comic strips that are used to regale the readers and make the
newspaper more appealing and attractive to the common readers,
especially the younger generation. They give social messages too.
 (Image Courtesy: Professional Cartoonists' Organization)
Purpose of cartoons

In most cases the purpose of newspaper cartoons is to add humor and

sarcasm, hitting an individual or event above or below the belt often in
an abysmal manner. Almost every cartoon has a unique character.
Cartoons are recognized more by the lines and caricatures rather than
by the name of the cartoonist. Most pictures comprise a caption that is
apt and relevant to the sketch.

Cartoons are also considered as the lighter side of editorial opinion,

not in words but through sketches and lines. They are a kind of
running commentary on social changes, mistakes, failures, success,
accomplishments, and major contemporary events.
 (Image Courtesy: The Atlantic)

Newspaper cartoonists enjoy ample freedom to express their opinions

or views, echoing the outlook of readers. Cartoonists always pick up
news subjects, related to the present on a day-to-day basis. Cartoonists
fear none while presenting their opinion on any event or individual.
 (Image Courtesy: Mark Armstrong Illustration)
Some of the famous newspaper cartoonists in the world are Gary
Larsen, Jonathan Shapiro, Lynn Johnston, Sudhir Dhar and R K
Laxman.
Role of Graphics in Print Media

In a fast changing world of information tecnology, the existence of print media would have been
in danger, as it was feared that it would be overtaken by the television and the Internet.

But the increase in readership of many quality newspapers and magazines prove that the print
media will always have a major role in everyday life of a person who wants to be well informed.

Easy accessibility, affordability, portability and above all, the authenticity of information makes
print media so essential to the audience without any discrimination on economic standands.

In a run for competition, it has become necessary for the publisher to be alive to the growing
expectations of a reader. It is a widely acknowledged fact that the reader wants to go through the
newspaper without strain, and expects a wide spectrum of news presented in an enjoyable style,
that encompassed a visually impressive and crisp format.

A lengthy story of an interesting topic and a high journalistic standard may go unread by readers
because of its bad presentation. But a story that deals with a topic which is not that serious may
generate interest in the readers by presenting it graphically well.

A graphic designer has a major role in the making of a good newspaper or magazine. Apart from
its overall looks, an information graphic designer uses his visual skills to make the news an
attractive presentation. The concept of using artists as reporters existed in many newspapers
before photo journalism arrived.

A reporter's on-site reconstruction of the incident in words may be better understood by the
readers with visual support. Though photographs obviously can serve the purpose in a very
effective way, nothing like translating the events into sequential graphics.

An infographist (as an information graphic artist is popularly known) uses a combination of

skills and materials. He reconstructs a scene in a graphic form. He needs the help of specially-
briefed reporters. With the information provided coupled with his artistic and journalistic skills, a
new form of communication takes shape.

In many situations, graphics provide more information in the given space than words alone can.
A tiny illustration or sketch can sometimes be more effective and communicative than words. A
general tendency as is seen in many publications is that graphics are used as ornamental visuals
to stories. An average reader will definitely have the capacity to understand that a long story
presented with such gimmicks is not worth reading. For him, the graphic should be informative
and useful. It should not be there on the page just for the sake of having a visual.
An infographist should think like a journalist. Though drawing skills are essential, every artist
cannot become an infographist. There should be a combination of journalistic and visual
communication skills. He should have a perspective of wide aspects of life and not just design.
He needs to be committed to his job with boundless enthusiasm.

Visual presentation of an event would not only make for an attractive presentation of the story
but also enhance the overall design of the page. Here too, an infographist can play a role in
deciding on page layouts that afford easy readability which would lend itself well to the reader.

As such, an infographist and designer are as much an integral part of a publication as the other
arms of print media. In the modern day situation where brevity in terms of constraints on time
prevails, it is essential to offer the reader a choice. A well-thought illustration, for instance, can
convey the essence of the story while offering the reader the option of either browing through the
entire report or merely capturing the essence of it by just taking in the illustration.

Under the circumstances, the designers are a definite value addition to a publication and have a
significant role to play in lending it class and stature which distinguish the best from the rest.

Photo Captions and Cutline

Photo captions and cutlines are the most read body type in a publication. Of all the news
content, only the titles of stories or headlines have higher readership than captions. It follows that
standards of accuracy, clarity, completeness and good writing are as high for captions and
cutlines than for other type. As with headlines, captions and cutlines must be crisp. As with
stories, they must be readable and informative.

Note: Captions and cutlines are terms that are often used interchangeably, particularly at
magazines. For our purposes, we will make the following distinctions.
Captions: Captions are the little “headlines” over the “cutlines” (the words describing the
photograph). See example.
Cutlines: Cutlines (at newspapers and some magazines) are the words (under the caption, if
there is one) describing the photograph or illustration. See example. 


Example:
 Obama vs. Palin ! caption line

President Obama and former Alaska Gov.

Sarah Palin have agreed to disagree over the
rules of a “death match” scheduled between
the two in the Capitol Rotunda. Betting odds ! cutline
in Las Vegas give the nod to Palin, who has
been known to shoot a moose, after the two
met on Thursday.

Note: Not all photographs carry a caption line. See “Tips and terms” below.
!

Reader behavior

When writing a cutline with or without a caption, it is useful to have clearly in mind the
typical reader behavior when “using” a photograph and accompanying text:

• First, the reader looks at the photo, mentally capturing all or most of the most obvious
visual information available. Often this reader look is merely a glance, so subtle aspects
of the picture may not register with many readers.
• When that look at the photo sparks any interest, the reader typically looks just below the
photo for information that helps explain the photo. That's when captions and cutlines
must perform.
• Then, typically, the reader, after digesting the information, goes back to the photo (so be
sure you enhance the experience and explain anything that needs explaining).

Required information

The specific information required can vary from one photo to the next. But for most pictures a
reader wants to know such information as:

• Who is that? (And, in most cases, identify people from left to right unless the action in
the photograph demands otherwise.)
• Why is this picture in the paper?
• What's going on?
• When and where was this?
• Why does he/she/it/they look that way?
• How did this occur?
 Simply stated, cutlines should explain the picture so that readers are satisfied with their
understanding of the picture. They need not — and should not — tell what the picture has made
obvious. It should supply vital information that the picture cannot. For example, a picture can
show a football player leaping to catch a pass, but it likely does not show that the result was the
winning touchdown. The cutline should give that information.
!

Tips and terms: Be concise; be precise; don't be trite

Cutlines should be as concise as possible, but they should not sound like telegrams or
machine guns. Unlike headlines (and caption lines), they should contain all articles and
conjunctions, just as do sentences in news stories. News picture cutlines should be
straightforward and clear.

Trite writing should be avoided. Do not point out the obvious by using such phrases as
“looks on,” “is shown” and “pictured above.”
Don't editorialize. The cutline writer should never make assumptions about what someone in
a picture is thinking or try to interpret the person's feelings from his or her expression. The reader
should be given the facts and allowed to decide for herself or himself what the feelings or
emotions are.
Avoid the known; explain the unknown. The cutline writer should avoid characterizing a
picture as beautiful, dramatic, grisly or other such descriptive terms that should be evident in the
photograph. If it's not evident in the photograph, your telling the reader won't make it happen.
However, the cutline should explain something about how the picture was taken if it shows
something not normally observable by the human eye. For example, was a wide-angle lens used?
Or time-lapse photography? Explanations also are needed for special effects, such as the use of
an inset or a picture sequence.
Reflect the image. Cutline writers should make sure that the words accurately reflect the
picture. If a picture shows two or more people, the cutline writer should count the number of
identifiable people in the photo and check the number and sex of the people identified in the
cutline to make certain that they match. Special precautions should be taken to make sure that the
cutline does not include someone who has been cropped out of the original photo.
Always, always, always check spelling. The cutline writer should check the spelling of
names in the story against the names that a photographer has provided to see if there are
discrepancies. The editor also should be sure that names in the cutline are the same names used
in the story. It should not be John Smith in the cutline, but John P. Smith in the story.
“Wild art.” Photographs that do not accompany stories often are termed “wild art.” The
cutlines for wild art should provide the same basic information that a story does. Such things as
the “five W's” (who, what, when, where and why) are good to remember when writing such
cutlines. If you don't have all the information you need, get on the phone and get the information.
Don't try writing the cutline without needed facts. Sometimes, wild art is used on a cover page to
tease (refer) the reader to a story inside. But, unlike television, don't tease the reader in the
cutline. Give as complete a story as possible, giving the reader the option of going inside for
more details. Most cutlines for wild art also have a caption line (overline). See example above.
Accompanying art. If a picture is running with a story, a lengthy cutline is usually not
needed. Sometimes a single line is sufficient to identify the people or situation shown in the
picture and to make clear their relationship to the story. Remember that most cutline readers have
not yet read the story. Many of them will read nothing but the cutline and the headline. So the
cutline must strike a delicate balance between telling enough information for the reader to
understand the photo and its context while being as crisp and brief as possible.
Shorter is better. Cutline writing triggers a temptation to use long sentences. Avoid that
temptation. The cutlines that accompany Associated Press photos are notorious for their rambling
sentences. They need to be rewritten into clear crisp sentences.

Time elements

Most newspapers use a cutline writing style that calls for the first sentence to be written in the
present tense and for subsequent sentences to be in the past tense. The rationale is that the first
sentence tells the reader what is happening in the photo. Subsequent sentences tell the context
and background for what happened.

Example:

Bay City Fire Chief Art Brown carries 3-year-old Tina

Wilson out of her burning home. Tina's parents, Al and
Barb Wilson, died from smoke inhalation Friday night
when fire destroyed their home at 1234 Maple St.



A common flaw is incorrectly placing the time element in the first sentence: . . . carries 3-
year-old Tina Wilson out of her burning home Friday night. 

It is incongruous to have both the present tense verb and the past-tense time element (as
adverbial information) in the same sentence. The easiest solution is moving the time element to a
subsequent sentence as in the example above. It also is possible to avoid the incongruity by using
the time element as adjectival information: . . . carries 3-year-old Tina Wilson away from
the Friday night fire that destroyed her home.

Some publications omit the time element from single-line cutlines. Critics (including me)
argue that this practice often mars reader understanding. Always include a time element to
inform the reader when the action pictured was taking place.
 Finally, don't do fiction

“What, you say, fiction? Never!” Well, you'd be surprised. Newspapers, including the Kansan
and the Journal-World, often slip into it. It usually happens when the photographer shows up to
shoot something, but there's no action or nothing really to show. For example, when a Kansan
photographer needed to shoot a photo about a CD being released locally, he went to the store.
What he found was a bunch of the CDs lined up on the shelf. And, of course, it's nice to get
someone in the photo. So the photographer had one of the store employees go to one of the
shelves to hold one of the CDs slightly askew so it could be seen. No problem, except the cutline
said the clerk was rearranging the shelf. Nope. Pure fiction. In this case, simply say the emplyee
“displays” the CD. Readers won't mind. In other situations, figure out the best way to say it; just
don't do fiction.

Design and Layout of Newspaper

Modern design styles are often in a state of flux. The list below are nine of the common design
styles that are currently being implemented by the professionals. Using them will give your
project a clean, stylish look that is sure to be appealing.

TIP #1 - MINIMALIST DESIGN

Don’t make your newspaper look crowded or too busy. Use lots of white space where you can.
Newspapers have always looked crowded in the past, but modern design tends to use more white
space, thus giving more importance to the images and text you do have on a page.

To give you an extreme example, imagine an entire page with only a single word in the middle:
"Desire." That forces all the attention on that one word and the possible connotations. That might
be extreme, but the concept of using more white space and making your newspaper look less
crowded is valid. Put more space between images and text. Space text out more, and put more
white space between paragraphs, columns, and other text boxes.

TIP #2 - HAVE GOOD COLOUR SCHEMES

Don't use too many colours. That just looks messy. Know what colours go well together and
which ones clash. On a newspaper, colours will always print darker than what is on your
computer screen so it is important to lighten up your colours. Learn which colours go well
together.
TIP #3 - FLAT LOOK
Try not to use 3D effects, bevels, or too many shadows. Those styles went out last decade when
they were novelties at the time. It is the flat appearance that looks clean and stylish.
TIP #4 - GRID OR GEOMETRIC PATTERNS
Modern design often employs images in a grid or geometric pattern. Again, this gives your
project a fresh, clean look with straight lines and easy on the eyes visuals.

TIP #5 - CHOOSE EASY-ON-THE-EYES FONTS

Your articles and stories are central to your newspaper design and layout. Don't use fonts that are
difficult to read or make out. Use fonts that the eye can pick up on easily and avoid using many
different kinds of fonts. Stick with the same font for each of your different text groupings: your
main text, your titles, your subtitles, and your headings.

TIP #6 - STAY CONSISTENT IN YOUR FONT SIZES

Different sized fonts can be used, but stay consistent. When your body text suddenly gets larger,
it has an unconscious impact on your readers. Not only does it look messy, but it creates a visual
detraction from the message.

TIP #7 - ALIGNMENT IS ESSENTIAL!

It may seem tedious, but a well-aligned newspaper will standout as being far superior to those
that are not aligned properly. Here are some areas of alignment you should consider:
• Columns — Make sure your columns are the same width and either aligned at the top or the
bottom and evenly spaced between themselves.
• Pictures — Align pictures to each other where you can and to text where appropriate.
Always try to show straight lines.
• Titles — Align titles vertically or horizontally where obvious. Centring titles over columns
will also look good.
• Horizontal and Vertical Spacing — If you have space on the right, make sure there is the
exact same amount of space on the left. If you have space between a title and a textbox,
make sure that you keep the same spacing between other titles and textboxes.
• Keep picture aspect ratios — If you need to shrink a picture on only one side only
(vertically or horizontally) to make it fit a particular space, don't shrink it. This will only
make your picture look fat or skinny instead of natural. Instead, crop it. It is always better to
crop the picture to align it than to make an image look unnatural.
TIP #8 - MANAGE FREE SPACE
Empty space is as important as the space you do use. Leaving large holes in your newspaper
design is not wise, but trying to use all the free space up may not be wise either. Well positioned
empty or white space can make a newspaper really stand out, look clean, look fresh, and look
elegant.