UNIT 3

CONTEMPORARY
ARCHITECTURAL
JOURNALISM
CONTENTS
• Role of the Editor
• Editing of Articles, Features and other
stories
• Editing for online newspaper and
magazines - Text preparation, Mode of
presentation, Standards and
Guidelines for documentation,
• Code of ethics
• Basic knowledge on Press laws
• Press Council of India
• Multimedia/online journalism and
digital developments.
 ROLE OF THE EDITOR

Magazine features editor: job description. Magazine features editors are responsible
for overseeing the content and quality of magazine publications and for ensuring
that features are interesting and informative. They plan the features section of
the magazine, supervise writers and set deadlines.
 ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW: A MAGAZINE AND ITS EDITORS

Arts and Crafts

1896

The first
editor Henry 1900- D.S
Wilson was a MacColl who wa 1904- Mervyn Macartney architect and
metalwork s a painter, art founder of the Art Workers’ Guild. Under his
designer critic and a editorship there was increased coverage of
journalist. Under American architecture. Articles also included
his editorship areas of new architectural activity such as
the coverage of ocean liners and coverage was widened to
overseas include furniture, decoration, garden design
architecture and sculpture as AR aimed to appeal not only
increased to architects but also to the general public.
The page size of the magazine was enlarged to
accommodate the reproduction of
photographs and drawings on a larger scale
 ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW: A MAGAZINE AND ITS EDITORS

Modern
Movement
1921

Ernest and William

Newton, both of whom
were architects, became
joint editors. Ernest died in
1922 and William
continued as editor until
he resigned in 1927
because of the pressure of
his architectural
work. Under their
editorship AR began to
focus on European
architecture and featured
many Modern Movement
architects and buildings
including Le Corbusier.
1928 Hubert de Cronin Hastings, the son of
Percy Hastings AR’s founder, was executive
editor of both AR from the 1930s until his
retirement in 1973. He studied architecture at
London University but was unhappy with the
department and went to study painting at the
Slade School of Fine Art. So Arts were given
greater coverage and he modernised the look
of the magazine and introduced new writers, John Betjeman
such as Osbert Sitwell and Robert Byron. He & Nikolaus Pevsner
was an idealist and he campaigned on various
issues. For example, he used the July 1949
issue of AR to launch a national campaign to
preserve the country’s then badly neglected
and near derelict canals.
 ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW: A MAGAZINE AND ITS EDITORS
Loss Making
1970
the magazine was losing money
and direction, and its circulation was
dropping and Lance Wright was
handed the poisoned chalice of the
editorship in 1973 until 1980. He
was a architect and had been on the
staff of AR since the 1960s. After the
certainty of the post-war era the
1970s led to a period of self-
examination by the profession,
questioning its role in society. Under
his editorship AR also started to
question the role of the architect in
society and what was the role of
architecture, and to engage their
readers in debate.
Peter Davey followed as editor for the next 25 years. studied
architecture and went on to work as architectural writer. This was like
a return to the roots of AR, when its first editor was architect D S
MacColl. AR returned to championing and examining high quality,
and often hi-tech, architecture from all over the world. He assembled
a young editorial team, including Jonathan Glancey and Dan
Cruickshank, and allowed them to pursue their own enthusiasms and
this resulted in a rich and varied mixture of articles and features. AR
shifted towards a themed format with buildings with the same
function being examined together. There were whole issues devoted
to shops and shopping centres (September 1986) and to individual
buildings such as the Lloyd’s Building (October 1986). Davey believed
that architecture was political as was demonstrated by the
publication in May 2002 of an article called View from Ramallah,
which consisted of extracts from the diary of architect Tom Kay,
detailing his experiences during the invasion and subsequent siege
and destruction of the city. This article provoked a huge response,
both positive and negative, but Davey stuck to his belief that this was
what AR should be covering.
 ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW: A MAGAZINE AND ITS EDITORS

Back to
Flourishing
2000s

AR begun to flourish again, with readers and

advertisers returning, and he proved a worthy She was succeeded
successor to Richards. As Hasting did before by Christine Murray in 2015
him, Davey had a couple of pseudonyms – who was appointed with the
Henry, and his sister Elizabeth Miles, that he remit of of expanding the
used when not wanting to write in his role as digital coverage of AR
editor.
In 2009 the architect and journalist Catherine
Slessor became the first woman editor of
AR. Under her editorship AR went through its
first redesign for more than 20 years in April
2009.
1958 issue
2015 issue 2009 issue
EDITING OF ARTICLES, FEATURES AND
OTHER STORIES

NEWS. Are you breaking ground on an interesting

building or opening one soon? Are you managing a
major competition?

BUILDING TYPES. Study Each month the

magazine and website feature projects of a
certain type

PRODUCT BRIEFS. If you are a manufacturer of

building products and have an interesting
product to showcase. Priority is given to
previously unpublished products. We accept
press releases via e-mail and regular mail. Please
include a short release (no longer than a page)
describing the product’s characteristics and
advantages. Do follow up

TECHNOLOGY, LIGHTING, AND DIGITAL

PRACTICE. If your project has used building
technology, lighting, or digital technology in a
particularly interesting way
EDITING OF ARTICLES, FEATURES AND OTHER STORIES

READ THE MAGAZINE AND STUDY ITS VARIOUS PARTS

to understand what kinds of stories they run. Read a year worth issues, since many special sections and themed
issues occur on a semi-annual or annual basis.

SUBMIT COMPLETE MATERIALS ELECTRONICALLY. Editors use a roundtable format to review submissions, evaluate
each project's design characteristics, and discuss possible story angles. To streamline the review, SEND HIGH-
RESOLUTION PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY, NARRATIVE, AND CONTACT INFORMATION VIA AN ELECTRONIC
TRANSFER PLATFORM such as Dropbox or WeTransfer. Alternatively, SEND AN E-MAIL WITH A LINK TO WHERE WE
CAN FIND IMAGES. Hard-copy submissions are discouraged.
They will not consider material that is submitted to several publications simultaneously, with the exception of books
for review, exhibitions, news, and products. In committing a project for publication as a feature, THEY REQUEST
EXCLUSIVE FIRST PUBLICATION
They do not publish unasked manuscripts. We also discourage materials written by second-party ghostwriters or
PR(public relations) firms. The vast majority of feature articles in this magazine are staff written or commissioned to
known freelancers. Pieces submitted by outside authors are rarely used.

Try to present the reasons your project should be of interest to architecture readers, and clearly present your ideas
in a short, direct narrative—avoid flowery, inflated descriptions—the project will speak for itself. TARGET YOUR
INQUIRY LETTER by explaining why your submission should interest the readers, explaining where you think your
story or project might fit in.
EDITING FOR ONLINE NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINES - TEXT PREPARATION, MODE OF
PRESENTATION, STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES FOR DOCUMENTATION,
What is Page Designing?
Page designing – refers to the lay outing of the newspaper page/
magazine page, which is also known as page make- up. It is the
arrangement of articles, cuts (pictures), headlines, nameplate,
folio and other contents on the page
Guidelines and Steps in Page Designing

HAVE A FOCAL POINT.

DESIGN WITH A PURPOSE.

KEEP IT SIMPLE.

MAINTAIN DESIGN USING UNITY AND CONSISTENCY.

DESIGN SHOULD HAVE CONTRAST AND BALANCE.

1 HAVE A FOCAL POINT.
Value shape scale movement

placement contrast isolation colour

2 DESIGN WITH A PURPOSE.
ORGANIZE large volumes of content into related parcels of information.

CRAFT the typography to make it comfortably readable over many pages,

yet lively enough to continually engage the reader.

STRUCTURE the parts of pages and sections to accommodate a variety of

content, whether image- or text-based.

INTEGRATE images with typography to achieve a unified form that builds a

communication much bigger than its parts.
3 KEEP IT SIMPLE.

“Crystal clear simplicity is harder to achieve than a crowded, busy design. If

you can remove an element without losing the meaning, it is not needed.”
4 MAINTAIN DESIGN USING UNITY AND CONSISTENCY.
The way LAYOUT, DESIGN STYLE, TYPEFACE AND COLOR work together to
communicate the same content.

UNITY
• creates order
• organizes page elements
• groups items
• creates visual connections
5 DESIGN SHOULD HAVE CONTRAST AND BALANCE.
CONTRAST Using italicized or bold text to create emphasis is a sample of
contrast. Contrast of line, shape, size, tone and texture.

BALANCE An effective design balances the visual weights on a page.

WRITING STYLES

(1) Expository

Also called informative writing, this style of writing attempts to relay facts for the sole
purpose of spreading information. The writer does not impart his or her opinion,
attempt to make a subjective reflection, or offer a description from a particular point
of view. This type of writing is common to textbooks, research papers, news stories,
encyclopaedias, and instruction manuals.

(2) Persuasive

Also referred to as argumentative writing, persuasive writing attempts to convince a

reader of a certain idea or position on an issue. This writing is characterized by its
focus on arguments supported through reasoning and facts. Persuasive writing does
not include writing that merely states what other people's opinions are without
adding their own commentary. For example, news articles that explain presidential
candidates opinions on an issue is not persuasive but expository. Persuasive writing is
common to editorials, speeches, business ideas, complaints, critiques, and reviews.
(3) Descriptive

This writing style attempts to describe a particular action, object, person, place,
event, or sense. In contrast to expository writing, it's description is often more
romantic, extraordinarily detailed, personal, and subjective A descriptive writer will
describe all of that but also relate the emotions felt, state the memories summoned,
compare it to cheese, ponder at its mysteriousness, assign it unique and arguable
characteristics, and perhaps even observe some introspective truth. Descriptive
writing truly attempts to captivate the reader. The descriptive type of writing is
common to poetry, diaries, parts of larger stories, and love letters.

(4) Narrative

The author attempts to tell a story in narrative writing complete with characters,
actions, dialogue, plot, and setting. It is usually fictional, but can be non-fictional as
well if presented correctly.
ORPHAN AND A WIDOW

Widow

A paragraph-ending line that falls at the beginning of the following page or column,
thus separated from the rest of the text.

Orphan

A paragraph-opening line that appears by itself at the bottom of a page or column,

thus separated from the rest of the text.
NICHE JOURNALISM

In a consistently changing world, journalism is pushing its borders towards hitherto unknown and less
known areas. One among this is niche journalism: journalism that has a specific target readership
which generally addressed magazines in the print media do not cater to. It could be called a kind of
specialised writing but not precisely so because specialised journalism is a part of our everyday
newspaper that responds to the demands of a more general readership. An example is the daily
newspaper where you have a separate sports page or an entertainment supplement. The colour
supplements sometimes fulfil the needs of a specific readership but are still a part of the general
newspaper. Besides, colour pull-outs for weekends and Sundays also have an advertising strategy in
mind, and that is why one comes across so many supplements added to the daily newspaper.

Niche journalism, therefore, is narrower in terms of subject and audience but panoramic within a
given subject. Travel magazines are just one example of niche journalism. Anurag Batra in his
insightful article in Impact entitled “Why Niche and Special Interest Journalism Count” writes: “Niche
journalism, as it has come to be known, is all about provisioning journalistically structured pieces
or informative content catering to a specific group of people who want information on a specific
subject.”
BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION

Barriers are difficulties or hurdles or obstacles that hamper the success of communication process.
Barrier can be at sender’s end, within the channel or can be at receiver’s end.

In technical language of communication barriers are also called ‘NOISE’.

Barriers can be classified into following categories-
These barriers can be physical, psychological, mechanical, and cultural and language.

Physical Barrier-
a) Unwanted sounds or noises- any kind of unwanted sound or noise can become a barrier in
communication process.
b) Absence of right environment- Physical environment plays important role in the success of
communication. Right and comfortable environment strengthen the receiver’s capacity.
c) Physical disabilities such as hearing problems or speech difficulties
d) Physical illness - if the receiver is physically not well. he will not be able to grasp message fully.
Such problems on the part of receiver can also come out as a barrier in communication.
Psychological barrier
· Receiver’s Psychology plays an important role in the reception and interpretation of the
message. If receiver is not ready to receive anything which he thinks is wrong or unethical.
· In some cases, the receiver is not ready to change his thoughts and ideas due to the fear of
unknown. This fear also becomes a barrier in communication.
· One possible psychological block is bias. People often hear what they expect to hear rather than
what is actually said and jump to incorrect conclusions.
· Selective perception is the personal filtering of what we see and hear so as to suit our own
needs. Much of this process is unconscious. . If the receiver is emotionally attached to something. He
will never accept anything against it.
· Lack of attention also becomes a barrier in communication process.
· Lack of interest in the message on the part of receiver also hampers the effect of
communication. If the message does not interest the receiver, he will likely to reject it.
Cultural barriers
The norms of social interaction vary greatly in different cultures, as do the way in which emotions are
expressed. For example, the concept of personal space varies between cultures and between different
social settings, colour denotes different meaning in different cultures for example white is a colour of
mourning in Indian culture whereas western brides wear on their wedding day. Cultural differences
between the sender and receiver give birth to cultural barrier.

Language barriers
· language sometimes refers to as semantic barriers. But semantic barriers strictly related to
connotative and denotative meanings of words. If the encoder and decoder do not share the some
connotative meaning for a word, miscommunication occurs. For example word cheap is used in two
ways. Its one meaning is related to low cost and another is low standard.
· Differences and the difficulty in understanding unfamiliar accents sometime the difference
between the accent can also miscommunicate a message.
The use of jargon, over-complicated or unfamiliar terms. Many a times people from a different
profession or background are not familiar with a particular technical terminology. Thus it can arise a
hinderence in the process of communication.

A good communicator must be aware of these barriers and try to reduce their impact by getting
continuous feedback.
 PRESS COUNCIL OF INDIA.

Press Council is a mechanism for the Press to regulate itself. The most
important reason of this unique institution is rooted in the concept that in
a democratic society the press needs at once to be free and responsible. If
the Press is to function effectively as the watchdog of public interest, it
must have a secure freedom of expression, unfettered and unhindered by
any authority, organised bodies or individuals. But, this claim to press
freedom has legitimacy only if it is exercised with a due sense of
responsibility. The Press must, therefore, scrupulously adhere to accepted
norms of journalistic ethics and maintain high standards of professional
conduct.
 “The basic concept of self-regulation in which the Press Councils and
similar media bodies world over are founded, was articulated by Mahatma
Gandhi”

The First Press Commission (1954) came across in some section of the
Press, instances of yellow journalism of one type or another, scurrilous
writing-often directed against communities or groups, sensationalism, bias
in presentation of news and lack of responsibility in comment, indecency
and vulgarity and personal attacks on individuals.
 FUNCTIONS

1. to help newspapers to maintain their independence

2. to build up a code of conduct for newspapers and journalists in

accordance with high professional standards

3. to ensure on the part of newspapers and journalists the maintenance of

high standards of public taste and foster a due sense of both the rights
and responsibilities of citizenship

4. to encourage the growth of a sense of responsibility and public service

among all those engaged in the profession of journalism.

5. to keep under review any development likely to restrict the supply and
dissemination of news of public interest and importance

6. to keep under review such cases of assistance received by any

newspaper or news agency in India from foreign sources, as are
referred to it by the Central Government.
 FUNCTIONS

7. to promote the establishment of such common service for the supply

and dissemination of news to newspapers as may, from time to time,
appear to it to be desirable;

8. to provide facilities for the proper education and training of persons in

the profession of journalism.

9. to promote a proper functional relationship among all classes of

persons engaged in the production or publication of newspapers.

10. to study developments which may tend towards monopoly or

concentration of ownership of newspapers, including a study of the
ownership or financial structure of newspapers, and if necessary, to
suggest remedies therefore.

11. to promote technical or other research.

12. to do such other acts as may be incidental or conducive to the

discharge of the above functions.
13. to undertake studies of foreign newspapers, including those brought
out by any embassy or any other representative in India of a foreign
State, their circulation and impact; and

14. to undertake such studies as may be entrusted to the Council and to

express its opinion in regard to any matter referred to it by the Central
Government.
ARCHITECTURE JOURNALISTS