Editing Detective, Katrine Sorensen

When reading through newspapers, magazines and books, I usually don't notice minor mistakes in spelling or grammar. It is only when the mistakes are so blatant they inhibit understanding that I pause. Therefore, it is always challenging when we practice our 'detective skills', it makes me read articles more thoroughly and look at other journalists's work differently.

The above screen capture is taken from a breaking news article published online April 11 by The Toronto Star. I think this paragraph is written very clumsily, and the structure, where the number is before the description, seems confusing to me. There are many other alternatives to this structure, as in an Edmonton Journal article written about the death: "Pte. Tyler William Todd, 26, a member of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, 1st Battalion, was the 142nd Canadian soldier to die in the Afghan war." Breaking news bring out the best and worst in journalists: on the one hand it shows how accurately and efficiently journalists can capture an event, but on the other hand the immense stress of a breaking news situation makes journalists highly prone to make errors. Perhaps the most important challenge of online editors is to be able to correct mistakes from breaking news articles?

The punctuation in the above screen capture, from an article published online by the Vancouver Sun, seems very off to me. The comma after 'why' in the third line should be removed, and there should have been commas surrounding the modifier 'flying from Yellowknife to Cambridge Bay last year' in the fourth line. Commas, semicolons, and periods seem like a very small part of writing, and they are often overlooked. However, punctuation should not be underestimated: when used erroneously, it can alter meanings and make sentences incomprehensible.

Both the journalist and the editor carry a great responsibility on their shoulders when it comes to editing work for their newspaper. No matter the fast pace of the industry these days, writers and editors must still aspire for perfection. Ambitious? Yes. However, there is a good reason why flawlessness is still the goal. Jennifer Carbert makes some very valid reflections over the responsibility writers have to their readers in her blog post Editing Detective: "Sloppy work reflects to the reader that the writer did not care enough about them, or the story to glance at it again." Great editing and writing must be done to make information more accessible to the users, and errors must never become a barrier to get the message across.

Note: Image from Biobreak

Editing Detective, Jennifer Carbert

Due to the pace of the journalism business mistakes are bound to happen. However, Ricki makes a good point in her blog post, Editing Detective when she says "These errors don't necessarily impair judgement of the readers, yet they make the original compositions look unreliable, as though no one cared enough to correct these mistakes at all."  The small mistakes made by the writer, or missed by the copy editor, makes the publication look lazy and discredits the facts of the story.

The editor of Reuters India missed a repeat word when reviewing the Polish plane crash highlights 'lamentable' fleet. The error seems to be from an earlier revision. The writer or copy editor decided the sentence worked better with said in a different place. However, when revising the story the writer or editor forgot to remove the original word. Although this is a simple error, as Ricki said, it reflects poorly on the publication.


Writers also have a responsibility to their readers. Readers want to know they are more than simply a number or a pay-check. A common phrase heard among journalists is, "I got into this business to inform the public." If this is so, then care about them are double check all work that has a potential to be published. Sloppy work reflects to the reader that the writer did not care enough about them, or the story to glance at it again.

Writers must remember the stories they publish represent not only their own diligence, work ethic, and competence, but also reflect on the intellect, and dedication of the publication. Let each story, caption and picture reflect an attitude of self-respect and honour.

Note: Image from cartoonstock by Joseph Farris

Obsolete Jobs: Wire Editor, Features Editor

"As a medium, print is on an irreversible decline relative to digital. We are headed for an inflection point at which print newspapers as we knew them in the past will be unsustainable.

Like it or not, print must change.

If you are a wire editor or features editor, your odds of surviving in such a position until retirement are slim to none. Those jobs are obsolete. We can not save a system in which thousands of people sit around reinventing the wheel in parallel processes all around the country.

The Tribune Company's bankruptcy raises the urgency of facing this issue, but it will be an issue for everyone sooner or later. This is just another case of "the future is already here; it's just unevenly distributed."

If you imagine that jobs will simply move from a print focus to an Internet focus, you're wrong. Some jobs, like the wire editor and the features editor, will disappear. The Internet presents us with completely new tasks, requiring different skill sets."

[...]

"This isn't a case of good guys (journalists) against the bad guys (management).

I know some people are offended by the description of print production jobs as "manufacturing," but they are. Newsrooms of the past were integrated parts of newspaper factories. We're leaving that behind.

I understand the concerns about quality as copy editing becomes minimal. I worked as a copy editor for years. In some situations my job was more rewriting than editing, as talented gatherers of news are not always talented tellers of stories.

If you are one of those talented gatherers of news who can't write clean publishable copy, you can pretty much consider your job to be in the same at-risk category as wire editing and features editing."

This excerpt is from an interesting article by Steve Yelvington, a lifelong journalist and now a strategist for a media company.



 Note: T-shirt image from Cafe Press.

Editing for the Web - Jennifer Carbert

The Edmonton Journal's article Edmonton cracks down on parking violators posted on March 16, 2010 is an online story which needs to adhere to some of the basic guidlines of online editing. Although the story follows some rules, there are some crucial points missing related to formatting.

PROS

• The story as well as each paragraph is very short and to the point. 
• An image which enhances the story is included.
• The headline clearly explains the information that is contained in the story
• There is a list of links in a sidebar on the page.
• The aricle follows one train of thought 
• Every new paragraph begins a new idea which seperates the ideas clearly and makes the article easier to read online.

CONS
There are some traditional guidlines for writing online which are not adhered to in this article however. Most online readers do not want to invest a lot of time into reading the news, they simply want to know what happened and get on with their day. Some techniques which have been developed in order for online readers to quickly digest the main points of the article are

• Bullets or lists to highlight key ideas
• Coloured type for emphasis
• Hypertext and links within the article
• Pull Quotes
• Frequent subheads 

Although not all stories lend themselves to these formatting conventions, it is possible to incorporate some of them, especially in this article. The author could have put the statistcs of how many people have been given tickets into a bulletted list. Subheads such as "new law" and "contact information" could have been added into the story for the reader to easily scroll to the part of the story they wish to read.

Editing stories for online is very different than editing for the physical paper. Online readers don't want to spend a lot of time reading the news, they want to quickly find out the news and move on. Using the techniques listed above the reader will better be able to understand quickly what the story is about. Using short words and sentences may not be fun for the writer, but more readers will follow the articles because they are easy to understand, easy to navigate and offer valuable outside information.

Note: Image from mediabistro

Editing for the Web, Pamela Di Pinto

It is a common fact: online readers want news fast. For this reason, stories for online use cannot be the same as their text- or print-based form. Instead, they must be altered, or edited, for the web, so users can scan through the story quickly while still getting the most important information first.

Although this is an excellent example of investigative reporting, an article from the Montreal Gazette entitled "Runaway prius story more fiction than fact" seems to be nothing more than shovelware, or a news story that has been "shoveled" on to the web without any changes made from its original print version. As mentioned above, news must be edited for online use; individuals who access news from the web differ from those who access news from the newspaper, so their stories should be adjusted accordingly.

To edit this story for better use online, the article should be "chunked," or divided into different sections using subheads. There are clear sections within the article naturally, so adding subheads would help break up the text and make the text more scannable for online news-goers. Remember: subheads should not be written like headlines! They should summarize themes within the story, so the reader knows what to expect further into the story. Bullets can also be used to break up the text, and would work effectively in this story. As well, paragraphs in online news stories should be kept short in length, and concise, to communicate the most important information to readers quickly. The paragraphs in this article do vary in length, however they tend to be around 4-5 sentences each; paragraphs should only be 1-3 sentences for online use. The writing style is also more reflective of a print-based story, with lots of color and personality. Although this can be effective, and definitely showcases the journalist's writing abilities, we again return to the point that online news-goers want information fast! Keep it short, sweet, and to the point, while keeping SEO in mind at all times. Finally, the journalist could have incorporated more multi-media elements into the story, such as pictures and videos, as well as external links to related articles or information on the Toyota recall in general. All of these elements work to paint "the bigger picture" for readers, while encouraging them to do some of their own investigative reporting on the issue too.

Note: Image from akamai.net

Editing for the Web, Steven Wagers

I chose to take a look at the article dubbed "No new snowmobile legislation: Stelmach" on the Edmonton Journal website. The article is fairly well written and I think it has some merit in the online world of media.

The article itself is short, and there is no wall of text. This makes the story very easy to read. The image also enhances the text in my opinion, because it shows the wreckage of the most recent snowmobiling disaster that has caused questions to be raised on this issue.

There were some problems though. There were no bold subheadings meaning the information was not "chunked" which prevented easy access to certain aspects of information. The story was not broken into segments, but because the story was so short, I don't think this is a huge issue.

Quotes were also included in the story, and they add some perspective to the article.

As for grammer and punctuation this article does a fairly good job, for the most part. I was able to come across a few errors though. The biggest one was a case where the author chose to seperate what I believe should be one sentence into two seperate sentences. In the article it is written "I know B.C.’s solicitor general is going to have a look at it. But you know, there’s this balance of common sense." I think it should be written like this: 'I know B.C.’s solicitor general is going to have a look at it, but you know, there’s this balance of common sense.'

Image taken from Gawker.com. The Editor-in-Chief is Remy Stern.

Editing for the Web, Terra Poole

The article, Disgruntled Calgary student in custody after holding secretary at knifepoint, from the Globe and Mail is basically just shovelware and does not really measure up to online journalism standards. This article was likely taken right from the print version and has not been adapted for online. This is evident through several factors including the lack of subheadings.

Subheads

It is very key that online journalists use bold subheadings because it helps break the text up for the reader. People read 25 per cent slower on the web than they do on paper so in order to keep readers interested, breaking up the text is key. Bold subheads are also important for stimulating a person's attention span for longer. Bold subheads help a reader to scan through a story rather than read the entire thing and still get the basic point of the story. This is really important for today's culture.

Headlines

The headline for this article is fairly successful, though for online journalism headlines tend to be shorter. Though, it gains some points because it is direct and to the point. In print journalism, headlines sometimes employ witty puns to catch a reader's attention. That does not work for online journalism, as the headline is the hook that draws the reader into the story. There is an unlimited number of online news articles a reader could read, so having one with a direct, easy-to-understand headline is very important.

The Length

The length of the story, for online purposes, is an appropriate length. It is direct and to the point. The paragraph and sentence length are appropriate because they are able to keep the reader interested. However, this story could employ more search engine optimization words in order to ensure it would be found easier in a search engine.

Note: Image from USA Studyguide

Editing for the Web, Megan Perras

This Edmonton Journal Article by Sandra Sperounes on Lady Gaga follows most of the rules of writing news for the internet.

There are three pictures to catch reader's interest at the top of the article, bringing a visual element to the web story.

The headline contains the name of the artist (Lady Gaga) as well as Edmonton, which would be caught by search engines when people typed in those phrases, yet aside from perhaps being a little too long, the headline still captures interest in the article.

The article is written in short one to three sentence paragraphs, to enable an easier read. It also is written in the inverted pyramid style so that the readers can get the most pertinent information first.

The story is short and succinct and offers factual information as well as opinion, such as her concert dates, and the writer's opinion that she is becoming "a more outrageous version of Madonna."

The article is around 280 words long, which according to D'arcy Kavanagh, is even slightly too long for web news. In his opinion, articles should be no longer than 250 words unless there are visuals or links to break it up.

There are many choices on the web page to link to other articles (written by the same news organization, as well as others on the web) on Lady Gaga.

One may also be interactive with the news article by commenting on what they have read. This also fosters interest from web readers.

They can also link to other entertainment articles and videos of interviews from the page.

Instead of including a summary at the top of the article, the Edmonton Journal employs clear and catching headlines.

There is no use of lists, which would may have worked better for the reader when the concert dates and places were being given.

Image from: http://bpstainton.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/lady-gaga-20080913-4547632.jpg

Editing for the Web, Robert Smethurst

The Edmonton Journals online article about snowmobiles is a classic example of shovel ware. While the paragraphs are small there are no subheadings throughout the entire article. It is a perfectly written article for the paper, but is has no stand out words, no in article links, and nothing to really help with scanability.

However, the text does match the rest of the website, and have provided some really good pictures that compliment the story quite well, but that's about it as far as writing for web goes.

picture

Editing for the Web, Kris Hoyt

I did an article on a recent snowmobile accident.















The headline, "No new snowmobile legislation: Stelmach," is fairly clear. It just talks about the absolute basic point of the article: That Ed Stelmach announced that there will be no new snowmobile laws. The headline could have included a simpler term than legislation, though.





The article is fairly small, with only 168 words. The whole thing can be put into one screen, where anyone can easily look over it in a second and determine important facts. It provides the most basic news story, in this case the government's decision involving snowmobiles, the reasons behind it, and some background information.

The article could be improved, however. It has no subheads, and its links, to the side, are confusing, not giving enough information.

















Link taken March 16/10 at 3:50 pm
Screen capture from EdmontonJournal.com
Picture taken by Jeff Bassett

Punctuation Review, Ricki Cundliffe

a. "We don't know how much longer we can wait before beginning it (the Downtown Revitalization plan the mayor said.

b. It was identified as a Canadian plane but US planes were in the area also Maj Gen Larry Jones said.

c. Did the Dawson Creek Peace River Block News win the photography award.

d. Bob Rock was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2007 he was also nominated for a Juno that year.

e. The inmate said to the parole board "Jones should not be released from prison. He is a dangerous man. He has told me several times, I will kill again if I get a chance.

EDITED:

a. "We don't know how much longer we can wait before beginning it - the Downtown Revitalization plan," the mayor said.

b. "It was identified as a Canadian plane, but U.S. planes were in the area also," Maj. Gen. Larry Jones said.

c. Did the Dawson Creek Peace River Block News win the photography award?

d. Bob Rock was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2007; he was also nominated for a Juno that year.

e. The inmate said to the parole board, "Jones should not be released from prison. He is a dangerous man. He has told me several times, 'I will kill again if I get a chance.'"