Editing Across Media

131 Pages·2011·12.26 MB·English

Editing Across Media
Editing Across Media
C P C W
ontent and roCess in a onverged orld
Editing Across Media
Ross F. Collins a
bout the editor
Ross F. Collins is a professor of communication at North Dakota State
University, Fargo, and senior editor for the university’s book publishing di-
vision, the NDSU Institute for Regional Studies. A former newspaper photographer,
copy editor and public relations practitioner, he has taught editing since 1985. Col-
lins has published or edited four books and many scholarly articles. He is a member
of the Society of Professional Journalists and American Copy Editors Society. Col-
lins received a Ph.D. in history with a journalism emphasis from the University of
Cambridge, Britain.
Chapter One: Editing Across Media
Margot Opdycke Lamme
Margot Opdycke Lamme is an associate professor in the Department of about the authors
Advertising & Public Relations at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.
1
Her research, focusing on public relations history, has been published in
American Journalism, Atlanta Review of Journalism History, Journal of Communication
Management, Journal of Public Relations Research, Journalism & Communication Mono-
graphs, Journalism History, Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, and as part of several
book chapters. She serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Public Relations Re-
search, Public Relations Review and American Journalism.
Chapter Two: Editing Begins with the Writer.
Mavis Richardson
Mavis Richardson is an assistant professor at Minnesota State University,
Mankato, where she teaches journalism and public relations writing courses. Before
2
going into teaching, she worked for more than 12 years as an assistant news editor
for a weekly newspaper in North Dakota. She received her Ph.D. in mass communi-
cations from the University of Minnesota.
vi Editing Across MEdiA Authors vii
Chapter Three: Think like an editor. Chapter Eight: Beginning the Design Process
Deneen Gilmour Amy Mattson Lauters
Deneen Gilmour is an assistant professor of print/online journalism at Min- Amy Mattson Lauters is an assistant professor of mass communications at Min-
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nesota State University Moorhead. She has taught editing, writing and conver- nesota State University, Mankato. A former print journalist and freelance designer,
gence journalism for ten years, and has published a number of scholarly articles Lauters is also editor or author of two books: The Rediscovered Writings of Rose Wilder
about convergence media. Before returning for graduate study, Gilmour spent 16 Lane, Literary Journalist, and More than a Farmer’s Wife: Voices of American Farm Wom-
years as a daily newspaper reporter and editor. She holds a Ph.D. in communication en 1910-1960, both through the University of Missouri Press. She received her Ph.D.
from North Dakota State University, Fargo. in mass communications from the University of Minnesota.
Chapter Four: Editors, Ethics and the Law.
Paulette D. Kilmer Chapter Nine: Page Design on Paper and Screen.
Paulette D. Kilmer graduated from the University of Illinois-Urbana/Cham- Therese L. Lueck and Val Pipps
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paign with a doctorate in media studies. She teaches reporting, introductory re- Therese Lueck is Professor of Communication at The University of Akron, Ohio,
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search methods, media ethics and communication history at the University of To- where she teaches journalism and other media courses and researches women and
ledo, Ohio, where she is a full professor. Besides contributing chapters to books and media. She received her Ph.D. from Bowling Green, Ohio, State University in Amer-
entries to encyclopedias, she has written two books, journal articles, and conference ican culture while teaching journalism in the School of Mass Communication. Pro-
papers. fessionally, she worked stints as a section editor at the Nashville Tennessean, copy
editor at the Toledo, Ohio, Blade, and, through an American Society of Newspaper
Chapter Five: Headlines and Headings. Editors residency, news copy and features editor at the Houston Chronicle.
Chris Roberts Val Pipps is an assistant professor at The University of Akron, Ohio, where he
Chris Roberts has been writing headlines since he was 14, when he became teaches journalism courses that focus on Web and print design and writing for the
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sports editor of the weekly in his hometown of Jacksonville, Ala. He has been a Web. He worked as a journalist for more than 30 years in all facets of the newsroom
reporter and editor since then at newspapers in Alabama and South Carolina. He before becoming a full-time teacher. He received his Ph.D. from the S.I. Newhouse
earned a doctoral degree from the University of South Carolina, where he taught School of Public Communications, Syracuse, N.Y., University.
advanced editing. He now teaches editing (among other classes) at his undergradu-
ate alma mater, the University of Alabama. He is co-author with Jay Black of Doing Chapter Ten: A Final Project.
Ethics in Media: Theories and Practical Applications, published by Routlege in 2011. Victoria Goff
Victoria Goff is chair of Communication Processes at the University of Wiscon-
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Chapter Six: Typography Then and Now. sin, Green Bay, advisor to the university’s student newspaper, and editor of Voya-
Jim Martin geur, a magazine of Wisconsin regional history. She spent more than 20 years as a
Jim Martin is a professor of journalism at the University of North Alabama, journalist, editor, publisher and author. She holds graduate degrees from the Uni-
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Florence, where he teaches copy editing, communication law and ethics, and vari- versity of California-Los Angeles.
ous news writing courses. He is the former editor and publisher of a weekly news-
paper and a national religious monthly. From 2005-2010 he was editor of American
Journalism, the journal of the American Journalism Historians Association. He holds
a Ph.D. in journalism from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.
Chapter Seven: The Visual Editor.
William E. Huntzicker
William E. Huntzicker has been a reporter and editor for the Miles City, Mont.,
7
Star and the Minneapolis Associated Press. He has written numerous articles and a
book on nineteenth-century journalism. He has taught history, reporting, photog-
raphy and publications editing at several universities, including St. Cloud, Minn.,
State University, the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin-River
Falls. He received his Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota.
viii Editing Across MEdiA
Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................... xi
Editing Across Media .........................................................................................1
Editing Begins with the Writer .........................................................................19
Think Like an Editor .........................................................................................55
Editors, Ethics, and the Law .............................................................................81
Headlines and Headings ...................................................................................99
Typography .....................................................................................................121
The Visual Editor .............................................................................................141
Page Makeup ...................................................................................................161
Design on Paper and Screen ............................................................................185
Case Study: Editing a Magazine .......................................................................205
x Editing Across MEdiA
Introduction
E
ditors in the new millennium have faced enormous technological
change. Duties and routines that lasted a century or more have fallen
faster than tight deadlines at big dailies—that is, if those dailies still ex-
isted. Some are gone. The rest are surely online, either incidentally or totally. Editors
who could do an excellent job of working a written story into a polished showpiece
found that this considerable skill was no longer enough.
Today many editors have to do more, know more, be more. They have to mas-
ter technologies that reach beyond copy editing. They may write headlines
W ?
hat is an editor
for Search Engine Optimization and construct blogs for reader discussion.
They may Tweet the news and tweak the pictures for presentation in print
The traditional copy
or on screen. They may design pages and opine in social media. They may
editor is becoming a
even write stories based on material transmitted from reporters, and certainly they
content editor.
will brainstorm the multimedia packages readers expect in a converged media
world. Editing, like all journalism, has become a process.
But editors today don’t all work in news operations. Editing is critical to all com-
munication, including public relations and advertising. Many writers in these areas
also are editors, the roles blurred, but the expectations still high. Writers should
know how to edit. Editors must know how to write. And they’ll probably do both.
The challenge is to produce in one textbook a series of chapters that touches
on all jobs listed under the title “editor” in the 21st century. We decided it’s impos-
sible to do alone. If editing students today are more and more expected to learn
it all, textbooks need to draw from many areas of expertise to help them learn it.
This text attempts to address the needs of editors both in and out of the newsroom.
Chapter writers acknowledge the continuing power of newsprint, but also consider
the growing influence of convergence. They assess the ever-greater significance of
visual literacy and the need of editors in public relations to present polished work
to their clients. What is an editor? Maybe we should ask ask what an editor is not.
The traditional copy editor is becoming a content editor.
These chapters help us to understand those new demands. An editor today may
be the classic multitasker. But some tasks haven’t changed. An editor is not a profes-
sional who takes no pride in careful grammar and considered word usage. She is
hardly ignorant of the wide world around her, having soaked up knowledge like a
xii Editing Across MEdiA Introduction xiii
wiki through widespread reading and wide-ranging education. He is not oblivious
to the ethics of plagiarism and the law of libel that could damage his operation and
destroy his career. These are among the editing skills that haven’t changed and still
A single text cannot must be part of editing textbooks. You’ll find them here.
hope to cover the entire If an editor’s duties today have extended beyond those of the past, however, a
spectrum. single course and a single text cannot hope to cover the entire spectrum. Perhaps
such a text never could; thorough coverage of the mechanics of English copy edit-
ing alone demands entire books devoted to usage. Writers of this text have tried to
address the most common grammar and usage mistakes university students make.
They have tried to encourage students to think like an editor, to take a critical and
detail-oriented approach to their work. But they have not claimed to cover the com-
plete AP Stylebook, or rewrite classic usage guides such as Fowler’s Modern English
Usage. Editing professors would be delighted if students could master the lessons of
this text. This knowledge offers the minimum competence a student needs to be an
editor in a complicated and rapidly changing world of mass media.
In addition to the chapters, this text offers vocabulary and sidebars that should
enrich a student’s learning, and perhaps even offer an opportunity to chuckle at the
craft’s quirks and history. Also included are lists of readings and websites for a stu-
dent interested in knowing more, and exercises designed to build competence. This
text can be the basic for students who will edit in many different job capacities, over
many platforms, in an unpredictable but exciting future of mass media.
“In my view, it’s a great time to be an editor,” Teresa Schmedding, president of
the American Copy Editors Society, told members at its 2011 conference. “It may be
the best time in history if you’re a good editor—if you’re intelligent and thougtful
and creative and adaptable.”
—Ross F. Collins
1
Editing Across Media
I
f you visit the references page of the American Copy Editors Society Web site
(http://www.copydesk.org/reference.htm), you’ll find a list of links: gram-
mar, vocabulary, punctuation, time zones, topography, technology, silent mov-
ies, disasters, math, stats, the Bible, dictionaries, the weather, Iraq, zip codes, social
security numbers, the Middle East, and word games. If you shop around (http://
www.cafepress.com/aces_market), you’ll also find selected merchandise printed
with copy editing wisdom such as “On Deadline,” “Unclogging Impacted Prose
One Sentence at a Time” and “Copy Editors See Things Others Don’t.
t ...
The Copy Desk. There for You.” The message is clear: copy editors he CoPy editor is
need to know much about a lot of things to ensure that the news is
the glue that holds the
reported clearly and accurately and that it is presented in a way to
process together.
drive the audience to the news source.
First, though, the news.
In his 1918 book, The Profession of Journalism, Willard Grosvenor Bleyer, a ven-
erated journalism educator at the University of Wisconsin, defined news as timely
information in relation to local, state or national concerns that readers would find
important. Today, five fundamental news values help guide editors’ decisions about
news gathering and reporting. Consequence emphasizes topics that educate, affect
lifestyle or are of social importance. Timeliness emphasizes topics that are current
or present a new angle or trend related to a current topic. Proximity emphasizes
topics nearby. Interest emphasizes topics that are unusual, entertaining or thought-
provoking. Prominence favors topics related to or focusing on famous people or on
institutions.
While reporters are on the front line, gathering the news, interviewing eyewit-
nesses and constructing the who, what, when, where, why and how of the story,
editors are back at the newsroom, residing in a real or virtual “slot” (copy desk
chief) or “rim” (copy editors). Nevertheless, even though reporters may seem to
have the glamorous job, it is the copy editor who is often described as the glue that
holds the news gathering and news production processes together. The operation
requires input from different section editors and their reporters, research librarians,
photographers and graphic designers, press operators and circulation staff.
Across time and textbooks, the responsibilities of a copy editor are frequently
2 Editing Across MEdiA Chapter One: Editing Across Media 3
v described in terms of their breadth and depth. Responsibilities include correcting pers and magazines for relevant copy to reprint) and Sunday, or magazine, editor. Lead, lede.
oCabulary
fact errors, language, grammar, and punctuation errors, ensuring stories conform Convergence has created demands for new editorial functions, however. In a The first sentence or two

and jargon
to the appropriate style guide, tightening and enlivening copy, ensuring timeliness, 2004 article, “The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence,” Massachusetts Institute of a story written for

for editors meeting deadlines, eliminating editorializing, writing headlines, verifying numbers of Technology Professor Henry Jenkins examined convergence. He defined it as a mass media. Similar to
and percentages and the conclusions based on them, eliminating potentially defam- process that can take place not just across distinct platforms, such as broadcasting “nut graf,” it distils the
AP.
ing material, ensuring the clear, accurate and logical flow in stories, and overseeing and print media, but also within a smaller, single platform, such as a smartphone or story and attracts the
Associated Press. A
the news selection and publication process. In doing these things, editors also at- a single newspaper. As such, convergence is influencing how traditional media or- reader. Editors consider
newspaper cooperative
tend to the preservation of voice, to the authenticity of the writer’s own words and ganizations define and shape themselves, their operations and their business plans a compelling lede to
that spans the world
tone. Indeed, the advent and proliferation of social media, of online communities and how they relate to their consumers. The media are no longer simply delivering be critically important,
to gather news for its
and networks, of citizen journalists, global communities and employee-bloggers, to news. They are no longer simply telling consumers what to think about, to use the because it brings readers
members and shares
name a few, has only strengthened the importance of authenticity and credibility in classic phrase of agenda-setting theory. Instead, they are challenged to find ways to into a story.
news among members.
writing. engage active and participatory media consumers already developing and defining
Much of what we know
Editors strive for perfection but remain mindful of time constraints, making the news on their own terms. Rim.
about the world comes
them pragmatic in approaching their work. They know the difference between a Some media specialists have focused on the process of convergence from an Old-style editing desks
from the AP. It was
story that is ready for publication, even if it could use more work, and one that is operational standpoint. They explore how electronic and print production can come were shaped like a U. In
established by New York
not ready, that needs more work. They evaluate the quality of the news gathering together within a newsroom and on the problems and opportunities therein, includ- the center, or slot, sat the
newspapers in 1849.
and reporting processes not only from a technical perspective but from a legal and ing the continued importance of ensuring accuracy and source credibility. Although city or managing editor,
ethical one as well, with an eye trained on the “big picture.” Editors are constantly copy editors have traditionally filled newsroom jobs that are separate and distinct who directed copy to
Convergence.
on the lookout for new story ideas. They determine not only what constitutes news, from those of reporters, the age of convergence coupled with a media industry reel- editors sitting around the
The evolution of editing
but also how it will be framed (what or who will be emphasized, included or omit- ing from declines in profits have begun to integrate the editing function into a num- table, the rim.
for a single platform,
ted) and how it will be presented through images and word choices in the copy, ber of different roles throughout the news-gathering and news-reporting processes.
such as a newspaper, to
the headlines and the captions. Such characterizations of editors have remained Although copy editors routinely multi-task, simultaneously editing a number Scoop.
multiple platforms using
remarkably consistent over time and across mass communications. of stories at different points of development and working with the writers of those Get the information
print, video and the
pieces to enhance and enrich their work, convergence requires editors to work on first; a fresh news story.
Internet.
The editing function: beyond the newspaper. stories across multiple platforms. In Principles of Convergent Journalism, authors Newspapers often can’t
Jeffrey S. Wilkinson, August E. Grant and Douglas J. Fisher explain that editors beat broadcast and the
Fourth Estate.
Like newspaper copy editors, magazine editors also maintain a big-picture per- might now also work in a news-gathering, writing and presentation team, rather web on breaking stories,
That is, the press.
spective, even as they attend to the details that comprise the production of a single than among other editors in the rim. For example, a print editor might oversee a so they sometimes re-
Another journalistic
issue, such as the story budget, submission specs, writing assignments, manuscript team that collectively gathers the elements for a story that can be told in print, in package material to look
term based on obsolete
reviews and editorial calendars. Calendars help freelance writers, public relations sound, in film and/or online. In broadcasting, an editor could take on the role of new.
standards, this one goes
professionals and advertisers pair their submissions, pitches and ad buys, respec- producer as well, shooting footage that can be directly uploaded to the Web or into
back at least to the days
tively, with an issue theme or topic. The result is an issue that stands alone, distinc- programming. A newsroom research librarian could combine journalism, editing
of President Andrew
tive in its copy, concept and design, even as it reflects the larger identity of the pub- and news judgment to enrich content across media. And, like the media planning
Jackson.
lication. Similarly, video editors focus on continuity and adherence to the storyline, and traffic management duties of advertising, a “newsflow editor” would oversee
merging the director’s and actors’ visions. Design editors construct and adhere to timing, placement and updates of content across print, broadcast and online media,
visual identity standards that allow for flexibility in individual page designs (hard deciding where and when to file particular stories and related story elements as the
copy or electronic) that remain consistent with the overall look and tone of the me- work itself develops. As such, convergence demands more editing at more points
dium. in a story’s development. That function starts when the editor assigns the story and
In a 1923 book, Newspaper Writing and Editing, Bleyer laid out the roles within thinks ahead to the story’s elements, such as the visuals, to the timing and medium
a newsroom, many of which still hold true. Editors-in-chief and editorial writers for the story’s filing. It extends to the possibility of further media integration as the
determine editorial policy, and managing editors supervise reporters and editors. story develops.
Additionally, in Bleyer’s time, editors handled the city news, as well as the state, It should be noted, too, that the speed demanded in filing stories on the Web
national, and global news delivered by the wire services and the newspaper’s corre- means that editors might now sort through the gathered information, a step nor-
spondents. Newsrooms might have included numerous other specialized positions. mally left to reporters, and begin exercising the editing function even before the
These might be labeled telegraph editor and cable editor or sporting editor, society story is written. By the same token, new forms of media, particularly online chan-
editor, financial and market editor, literary editor, editor of the woman’s depart- nels such as blogs and microblogs, also have changed the way news is developed
ment, dramatic and musical critics, exchange editor (who reviewed other newspa- and reported, providing media outlets and their reporters more ways to engage