 
______________________________________ Take Advantage of These Opportunities Below are two opportunities for your students you might want to consider. Student/Newspaper Partnership Grants from the NAA Foundation The NAA Foundation invites applications from middle and high schools wishing to partner with professional newspapers in their communities to help start, relaunch or revitalize student newspapers, whether online or in print. All public and private schools serving grades seven through 12 and working in partnership with daily or nondaily professional newspapers are eligible to receive Student/Newspaper Partnership Grants from the NAA Foundation. Schools are also encouraged to seek a university or a college as an additional partner. Funding is given to start student newspapers, to relaunch or to revitalize former or current programs. The NAA Foundation especially welcomes grant applications from urban, rural or minority-majority schools. Additional details and an application can be found on the NAA Foundation's Web site at www.naafoundation.org High School Essay Contest Budding journalists in high school may win as much as $1,000 in the Society of Professional Journalist's high school essay contest on "Why free news media are important." Students enrolled in grades 9-12 in public, private and home schools are eligible to apply by the March 4 deadline. Students must submit original work and have a sponsoring teacher sign the contest entry form. For information go to www.spj.org ___________________________________________________________
Ways to improve a written or broadcast story Avoid: • Using synonyms for said, unless another word fits the meaning better. If someone "shouted" or "screamed," the use it. However, words like "commented," "remarked," and "expressed," are longer and add nothing to the meaning. "Stated" should never be used unless someone makes an official statement. • Passive voice. Active voice is more natural, and it is usually shorter. It's more natural to say "President-elect Barack Obama spoke to President George Bush about the Iraq War," then it is to say "President George Bush was spoken to by President-elect Barack Obama about the Iraq War." In this instance, the passive voice sentence is not long longer, it is also awkward. Do avoid "when asked." It is passive, and it's obvious if someone responded, that he/she must have been asked. • Writer's or reporters opinion, if they're reporting news or feature stories. News stories include sports stories. If it's commentary, it's okay to include opinion. Otherwise, let the facts speak for themselves. • Using "due to" for "because of" and using "feel" for "believe" and think." "Due to" literally means something is owed to someone else. It probably would seldom be used in a story. People tell your their thoughts or beliefs, they don't tell you their feelings. • Using words like "many," "some," "few," "several," and "a lot." They're vague words. How many is many? It might be five for one person, 200 for another person, and more than 1,000 for someone else. • Lack of agreement between noun and pronoun. Words like "team," "squad," "administration," "faculty," "chorus," and "band" are singular They should be followed by "its," not "their" or "they." • Verbosity. Brevity is important in journalism. Make every word count. ___________________________________________________________
More Interesting Websites •The Unspoken Words of Media Ethics: Do we know what they are? The MacNeil-Lehrer Productions have created a lesson palan asking students to examine journalistic ethical codes from various news societies and to role play ethical dilemmas they might encounter as journalists. The lesson includes background on unethical journalists such as Jayson Blair and is a perfect companion lesson to the film Shattered Glass. the site may be found at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/media/ethics_10-08.html. •For exercises in grammar, usage and AP style, check out http://newsroom101.com. The site has interactive quizzes and exercises. It's a must for any journalism adviser. •If you think no one understand what you go through as a journalism adviser, go to http://teachj.wordpress.com/category/advising. This site is a blog by a journalism teacher who offers personal thoughts on the profession of advising and also provides links, lesson plans and videos of interest to all advisers. ___________________________________________________________
Web Sites for Teaching High School Journalism Journalism teachers who enrolled in Poynter Institute’s Boot Camp for Journalism Teachers this past summer had to create a list of websites which they thought would aid them in their teaching. You might also find these sites helpful. Some of them are below. I will provide others in future months. The first one below was submitted by Bob Greenman, a JEA member from New York. The rest are from the Boot Camp advisers. •http://www.nytimes.com/learning/issues_in_depth/2080707.html This site includes a collection of the New York Times NIE program’s journalism lesson plans (by category), including the newspaper articles they relate to. Accompanying the lesson plans are a number of valuable student-and professional-journalism related sites, including Campus Weblines, an extensive guide to producing an online student newspaper. This site was created by Holly Epstein Ojalvo, the former newspaper adviser at Manhattan’s Stuyvesant High School. Her students, attending a school a few blocks from the World Trade Center attack, created a special 9/11 edition of their paper. It can be seen at: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/specials/terrorism/stuy.pdf • The Power of Words (http://www.projo.com/words/) by The Providence Journal The Providence Journal’s site provides weekly tips on improving journalistic writing. The tips are written by Providence Journal reporters, and in blog-style, these reporters explain how they used a particular story, what they were thinking during the process, and how they investigated the story. Links to the original news stories are provided. • Just for TV Teachers (http://htv.adviser.htvblogs.com/) by Dave Davis As the name states, this site is for broadcast advisers only. Advisers can hang out here when they have some down time, an open computer, and a steaming cup of coffee. Dave Davis blogs about his broadcast program, journalism topics, and life in general. While visitors can’t comment on his blogs, it is still refreshing to read about another’s experiences as a broadcast teacher. Davis teaches in Springfield, Missouri, and his program has been nationally recognized. • Journalism Ethics Cases Online (http://journalism.indiana.edu/resources/ethics/) by Indiana University School of Journalism This site offers case studies on a myriad of ethical journalistic situations. It’s an excellent way to prompt student journalists to examine ethical issues. ___________________________________________________________
Localizing off-campus events School media (broadcast, newspaper, yearbook) should cover events occurring off-campus of interest to their viewers and readers. Since 2008 is an election year, it is important to cover the national election. Coverage, however, should focus on student and faculty involvement in the election. Get photographs of students and faculty members putting signs in their yards, putting a bumper sticker on their car supporting a particular candidate, reading newspaper and magazine articles about the election, sending out campaign literature for a candidate, watching the presidential debates on TV, and/or going to the polls to vote. Don't take photographs off the Internet, unless you have permission of the Internet site to use such pictures. Even if you get permission, those photos would not localize the coverage. Always give listeners and readers information they cannot find elsewhere. Interview your students and your faculty members. Get their opinions about the issues. Staffs need to localize all off-campus topics. Show how the events covered in such stories affect your readers. Another way to localize is to conduct a survey. Ask students who they want to be president. Ask them what they think is the most pressing concern teenagers face today. Ask them which presidential candidate they think will best solve this concern and why. Reporters should dig for unusual, interesting responses to make the reporting come alive. Localize! Localize! Localize! ___________________________________________________________
Helpful Quotes Stacey Wilkins, a member of the Journalism Education Association, posted these quotes on the JEA listserve as ones journalism teachers might want to use in their classrooms. THSPA members might also find them useful. "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." –Red Smith _______ "Journalism is a public responsibility and a public trust," –Horace Greeley _______ "News is history in its first and best form, its vivid and most fascinating form." –Mark Twain _______ "In journalism, there has always been a conflict between getting it first and getting it right." –Ellen Goodman _______ "Most of music journalism is played by ear." –Stanley Walker _______ "The power is to get the agenda. What we print and what we don't print matter a lot." –Katharine Graham _______ "The country cannot be the country we want it to be if its story is told only by one group of citizens. Our goal is to give all Americans front door access to the truth." –Robert C Maynard _______ "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter, but I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." –Thomas Jefferson _______ "The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism." –Wole Soyinka _______ "We can have facts without thinking, but we cannot have thinking without facts.” –John Dewey _______ “The founding fathers gave the free press the protection it must have (to) have the secrets of government and inform the people." –Justice Hugo L Black _______ "The country cannot be the country we want it to be if its story is told by only one group of citizens. Our goal is to give all Americans front-door access to the truth." –Robert C Maynard _______ "One republic and its press will rise or fall together." –Joseph Pulitzer _______ "The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech." –Justice Anthony Kennedy ___________________________________________________________
Re: Communication: Journalism Education Today Since the summer of 2008, when JEA published a series of articles on typography by Laura Schaub and Brian Willson, that particular issue of (Communication: Journalism Edudation Today) C:JET has been one of the most-often requested. It's been sold out for a while. That series of articles, and the accompanying exercises, online. The web address is http://www.jea.org/curriculum/design/type/type.html You should find these article worthwhile as you redesign your publications for the coming school year. ___________________________________________________________
Communication: Journalism Education Today Since JEA published a series of articles on typography by Laura Schaub and Brian Willson in C:JET (Communication: Journalism Education Today), there have been so many requests for the article that the issue of C:JET they are in is sold out. Bradley Wilson, C:JET editor, has put that series of articles, and the accompanying exercises, online. You won't want to miss these great tips on proper use of typography. The exercises accompanying the articles will also be valuable for you to use in the classroom with your students. The link to the website is http://www.jea.org/curriculum/design/type/type.html ___________________________________________________________
The Wheel The National Scholastic Press Association started a a new feature this month on its Web site called The Wheel. NSPA said it named this section of resources The Wheel "because it’s a place to find that perfect sample, the definitive model. Whether it’s a policy or a form, chances are someone has created what you’re looking for." Resources in The Wheel are mainly those items that help student media organizations function, the elements that help students and advisers be successful. So why reinvent the wheel?" NSPA has granted permission to use information in The Wheel in educational student media environments with proper attribution. The first items posted included a yearbook distribution letter, a set of sample obituary policies and guidelines, and a contract from the Student Press Law Center that clarifies student copyright and the license to use the work in the newspaper, yearbook or magazine. Be sure to check this site regularly for new postings. NSPA's website is www.studentpress.org. ___________________________________________________________
Ways to Improve Your Newspaper or Yearbook THSPA evaluated 23 newspapers and 22 yearbooks this year. Following are 10 tips that would help publications receive a higher evaluation next year. They are not that difficult to accomplish. 1. Leave writer's opinion out of copy. Let the facts speak for themselves. Use direct quotes where the individuals quoted state their opinion, but dig deep for meaningful, unusual comments. 2. Follow Associated Press style rules. If students work on a college publication or if they decide to major in journalism, they will be expected to follow AP guidelines. It's best to learn those guidelines while they're in high school. Following a set of rules also allows a publication to obtain a level of consistency and brevity. 3. Watch agreement between noun and pronoun. Remember words like "team," "band," chorus," "faculty," "group," and "administration" are singular. They should be followed by a singular pronoun. 4. Write leads that grab the reader's attention. Most articles in yearbooks and newspapers should take a feature approach. Create a visual scene. Make the reader feel as if he is witnessing an event take place. 5. When covering a sporting event, include some action. Again, make the reader feel as if he is witnessing the plays again. Capture the sights and sounds in your writing. 6. Crop photos closely--normally within two picas of the center of interest unless the subject is moving and the reader needs to see the foreground. 7. Avoid posed photographs. Action photographs have a much greater impact on the reader. 8. Follow rules for modular (rectangular) design. Use white space wisely and don't crowd a page with too many elements. Using narrow grids will give you more flexibility in design. 9. Avoid writing in first or second person. That doesn't mean you would never use first or second person, but third person works best in most situations. 10. Newspapers need to include at least one non-bylined editorial in each issue based on a main news story. They should take a stand as a staff on important issues. Columnists write about their personal opinions. Editorial writers do not. Each staff should make as its goal for 2008-2009 to move up at least one rating category over this year's rating. It's not impossible to do. Extra attention to details could pay big dividends. Little things mean a lot. ___________________________________________________________
AP Stylebook When making a decision about style, it is usually best to follow the AP Stylebook guidelines. Dwight Bitikofer, publisher of the Webster-Kirkwood Times indicated in a recent column that another paper in the St. Louis area was using "website' as one word and without capital letters, even though the Associated Press says "Web" should be capitalized since it refers to the formal name World Wide Web. That is why "www" begins each Internet address. The AP says publications should use "Web site" instead of "website." Bitikofer also pointed out that AP style says "Internet" should be capitalized, since it is the formal name for "a decentralized, worldwide network of computers that can communicate with each other." The AP Stylebook also says in subsequent uses the capitalized word "Net" is acceptable for "Internet." It also says "e-mail" should not be capitalized, but it should be hyphenated, and if an e-mail or an Internet address falls at the end of a sentence, the writer should include a period. In addition, Bitifkofer says he thinks an AP stylebook belongs on every teacher's desk and on every student's desk. That might not be necessary, but there should be more than one copy available in each classroom for ready access. Bitikofer gave the following examples of commonly mis-used words and styles cited in the AP stylebook: numerals Except as otherwise specified, spell out whole numbers below 10 and use figures for 10 and above. There are exceptions to this rule. For examples, ages are always written as figures regardless of whether they are above or below 10. So are street addresses. capital The city where a seat of government is located. Nashville is the capital of Tennessee. capitol Capitalize U.S. Capitol and the Capitol when referring to the building in Washington. Follow the same practice when referring to state capitols. fewer, less In general, use fewer for individual items and less for bulk or quantity. I had less than $100 in my wallet. (An amount) But: I had fewer than 100 $1 bills in my wallet. (Individual items) last Avoid the use of last as a synonym for latest if it might imply finality. ....The last announcement was made at noon may leave the reader wondering whether the announcement was the final announcement or whether others are to follow. lay, lie The action word is lay. It takes a direct object. Lie indicates a state of reclining along a horizontal plane. It does not take a direct object. When lie means to make an untrue statement, the verb forms are lie, lied, lying. He lay the AP stylebook on the table. He let is lie there far too long. He was lying when he said he used it hourly. The AP Stylebook contains an alphabetical listing of common words, names and terms. It also includes a punctuation guide, a spelling guide and a grammatical guide. It's a beneficial tool for all publications. The key to style, however, is to be consistent. It's best, however, to decide to be consistent by following AP guidelines. Those of you who have sent your publications to THSPA to be evaluated may have noticed there is a statement in the evaluation booklet about following AP style rules. If you're not doing so now, you should start. ___________________________________________________________
Homer Simpson on Grammar The Simpsons' movie was a hit with teenagers, just as The Simpsons' TV series has been for years. You might want to check out the rhetoric of Homer Simpson at http.grammar.about.com/b/a/000064.htm. This site offers a lot of valuable grammatical tips, including a listing and description of commonly confused words like "beside" and "besides." It also defines and gives examples of the various rhetorical concepts, including the following: •analogy •apostrophe •dehortatio •encomium •erotesis •figures of speech •hypophora •oxymoron •personification •rhetorical question •tricolon •verbal irony There are also a lot of links to other sites that might help your students improve their grammatical abilities. Happy hunting! ___________________________________________________________
Chip on Your Shoulder Chip Scanlon, who writes the Chip on Your Shoulder column for the Poynter Institute, discussed when writers should use "says" instead of "said" in an August column. Chip said feature writers often use "says." Scanlon said "says" allows writers to get closer to a goal set by the late John Gardner, novelist and writing teacher. Gardner thought "says" conveys "dramatic action, as in a scene, that creates a 'vivid continuous dream' and keeps a reader reading, especially when the story represents a narrative reconstruction of events." When a reader watches a story unfold before his eyes, Scanlon says the present tense "says" is preferred. Scanlon also says, however, that "some editors and other critics abhor its (says) familiarity, considering it the kind of overindulgence that feature writers revel in." These editors and critics, Scanlon says "argue for the second choice, stressing that stories, wherever they appear in a newspaper, occur by temporal default in the past, and thus call for the verb tense that conveys summary narrative. The first shows, the second tells." The bottom line, howwever, Scanlon says "depends -- on your intent, your paper's style, your editor's preference and how those verbs of attribution sound on the page." "The debate over says vs. said" Scanlon says, "is less contentious in broadcast writing. "Says" is preferable in most broadcast news programs because it makes it sound as if the event is happening at the moment. Scanlon did not talk about which to use in yearbooks, but generally, since yearbooks are history books, "said" would be preferred. In newspaper writing, the key is to be consistent. "Said" might be the best in news and sports stories and "says" might work best in feature stories. That would be consistent, even though you're not using the same word in all stories. To avoid confusion, perhaps you shouuld always stick to one or the other. ___________________________________________________________
Looking forward to looking back
Now is the time to be thinking about coverage ideas for your publications for the coming year. It never hurts to take a look backward 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or 100 years ago when thinking about possible story ideas. You can take these off-campus events and localize them for your own use. U.S. News & World Report in its Aug. 13 issue, went back 50 years to take a look at 1957. The magazine called it "A Year That Changed America." One major event that occurred in that year was integration of public high schools throughout the United States following the Brown v. Topeka Supreme Court decision a year earlier. You might consider an article about how integration works at your school. Other events occurring in 1957 included the launch of Sputnik. You might do a survey to find out how many of your students know what Sputnik was and tie that into the most recent space adventure that occurred this week. Do your students and teachers think they will ever go into space or would they even want to? Tang hit store shelves in 1957. Do your students and faculty members drink Tang? If they do, why do they like it? U.S. News & World Report also said "the modern concept of global warming began with a 1957 article in the journal Tellus by oceanographer Roger Revelle and Hans Seuss, a chemist, who made the then controversial cliam that humans were pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere faster than the oceans could absorb it." Do your students and faculty members think there is such a thing as global warming? Did the heat in Tennesssee in August affect sports practices or any other school activities? Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel in 1957. Did any student's grandparents own one? Do a survey to find out how many students have ever heard of an Edsel. Then do a story on modes of transportation students use today. IBM employees developed Fortran (stands for formula translating) in 1957. This system sped up the programming process many times over and opened up computer programming to a much wider audience. How many of your students use computers daily for homeword and/or for socializing? Before Fortran, programmers had to enter all numbers and letters by hand which meant even simple calculations took hours. In 1957, Wham-O manufacturing Co., patented the Pluto Platter, a flying saucer. It later changed the name to Frisbee. How many of your students play Frisbee? Do any play Ultimate Frisbee? It was also in 1957 that the U.S. Surgeon General announced that "excessive cigarette smoking is one of the causative factors of lung cancer." How many of your students smoke? How many of your faculty members? Have any stopped smoking? Are any trying to stop? Tie all of this in to the Tennessee law that will take effect in October that forbids smoking indoors at most public places. According to U.S. News & World Report "the strong, straight lines of Helvetica shape corporate logos, government tax forms and exit signs" as well as "warning messages on cigarette packs." How many of you use Helvetica in your publication? Can your readers tell you what typefaces you do use? Does the typeface make any difference in readership? Composer Leonard Bernstein produced West Side Story in 1957. Viewers called it a modern day Romeo and Juliet. How many of your students have seen the movie? How many have read Romeo and Juliet? What comparisions do they see? Are there gangs in your school? Dr. Seuss published Cat in the Hat in 1957. How many of your students have read that book or any other Dr. Seuss book? Do they read them to younger siblings today? What is their favorite Dr. Seuss book? The Beatles also formed in 1957. Do students still enjoy music by the Beatles? What is their favorite song by the group? How many can name the four members? It's easy to look at local, state, national and international stories and localize them for your publications. Localized stories work well for broadcast shows, newspaper articles or yearbook copy. ___________________________________________________________
Let the Walls Talk…Roy Peter Clark Check out Roy Peter Clark's column at Poynter.org, entitled Let the Walls Talk. In that column, Clark talks about seeing the future of newspaper writing, and his name is Ben Montgomery. "Among his other accomplishments," Clark said, "young Ben is the founder of Gangrey.com, an amazing Web site devoted to good writing as a way of forestalling the death of newspapers. Visit that site and you'll find a brat pack of hot young writers sharing stories and ideas about their craft." Even though Clark says he has seen "the future of newspaper writing," what he says in his column could also be the future of yearbook writing and broadcast writing. Writing is writing. Check out the Gangrey.com site as well. There are some interesting stories there. ___________________________________________________________
CubReporters.org Check out he website, CubReporters.org. It's a site that will give your students tips on how to be better writers and on how to find jobs in the journalism field. Even though they might not be interested in going into journalism as a career, the tips on how to get a job are valuable tips on how to get any kind of job. There is also a list of all colleges and universities in the United States that offer journalism programs. If students click on "Links," they will find several articles, including 20 Tips for Better Interviews, 50 places to shop for stories and 12 quick tips for being a smarter reporter. Checking out the information on this site will help your students become better journalists. ___________________________________________________________
JEA's Cornerstone Award Guidelines Principal Questions Your principal needs to answer several questions, and you have to provide supporting information. The questions are as follows: 1. Does your school promote First Amendment rights, including artistic expression by students and faculty? 2. Does your school promote and support teaching of the First Amendment through classroom activities and exercises? 3. Has the content of textbooks ever been altered because of controversial content? 4. Are students prohibited from joining religious clubs? 5. Does your school use filters to block Internet access for student and/or faculty? 6. Has a student been punished for the content of a home Website or an off-campus publication? 7. Are administrators involved in making musical decisions for the school's band, choir and/or drama department? 8. Would a student at your school be punished for not standing for the Pledge of Allegiance? 9. Please define, what, in your understanding, would be unprotected speech or expression in your school (such as expression an adviser or administrator could legally block or withhold). 10. Does your school have a dress code that prohibits religious or political messages or symbols? 11. Has any school administrator or faculty member (other than a journalism teacher or media adviser) required student journalists or a media adviser to submit content for prior review before publication? 12. Is there an expectation student journalists or publication advisers will allow a school administrator to read stories, especially those deemed controversial, before publication? 13. Who makes the final decisions concerning content of your school's student media? Please explain. 14. What would happen if students at your school wanted to start a regular posting to Websites such as ratemyteacher.com, and student media wanted to report about the local hosting/posting of the site itself? 15. List specific school-sponsored activities that teach or allow students to model or apply the rights and responsibilities of the First Amendment. Supply names and contact information for people involved with organizing such activity and include any printed promotional or activity-related materials. You may also include testimonials about the activities. Last, provide a self-evaluation of the outcome of the activities. Obviously, how you answer the questions will determine whether your school will be considered for the award. Clarkrange held a Constitution Week in September. The social studies and journalism departments joined together with the media specialist and administrators to plan the week. Students were encouraged to memorize the First Amendment. Those who did had their name entered in a drawing for a $30 prize. A voter registration booth was also set up at the school, and 26% of those eligible to register to vote did so. In addition, the drama club performed short skits about five important Supreme Court cases. The club performed the skits at 7:45 a.m. each morning in the cafeteria, and often there was standing room only to view the skits. The outcomes of the cases were not given, and teachers were then encouraged to lead a discussion in which students could state their opinions. The results of the cases were read over the intercom at noon. The highlight of the week for most students, according to Carolyn, was a Constitution scavenger hunt. Patterned after the TV show "The Amazing Race," the contest pitted teams of students against each other to decipher clues and find letters. Teams were allowed to hunt at designated times during the school day and before and after school. When all the letters were found and unscrambled they spelled "Bill of Rights." The final "treasure" was a copy of the Bill of Rights buried in the courtyard. The winning team members each received a $20 gift certificate. "Observances such as this let our students know just how important we think the Constitution is," Principal Bill Cody said. "We hope to impress on them the value of participating in the democratic process." ___________________________________________________________
Twenty Tips to Improve THSPA Publications Following are 20 suggestions for improving next year's publications. Each publication in the state should be an All-Tennessee publication. 1. Follow AP style rules. Abbreviate months of six letters or more when followed by a specific date. For example: Oct. 6, not October 6. Notice you do not need th, rd, st, nd after the date, and you do not need the year, if the event falls within the year of publication. Even though you publish a story in January about something that happened in December, you do not need to say Dec. 5, 2006. Just say Dec. 5. 2. You do not need to use the word "on" in front of dates. Just say, "It happened Dec. 5," not "It happened on Dec. 5." Go through your publication and eliminate all unnecessary words like "that" and "the." They're sometimes necessary, but not always. 3. Write in active voice--not passive. It'susually more natural, and most of the time it is shorter. Brevity is an important part of journalism. For example: "Jack Jones, center, made the five-foot jump shot." Don't say "The five-foot jump shot was made by Jack Jones, center." You will notice the active voice sentence is two words shorter. 4. Identify individuals the first time they're mentioned in copy. Normally, you would identify students by the grade they are in, and you would identify teachers by the subjects they teach. However, identifications depend on the situation. If a student is a sports player, then identify him/her by his/her position on the team. The second and succeeding times you use a person's name in a story, use the last name only, unless there are two people in the story with the same last name. 5. Normally, you will spell out numbers nine and below, and you will use cardinal numbers for 10 and above. However, AP style does say there are times you will always use cardinal numbers. Those times would include ages and street addresses. Get an AP style book and have staff members use it. It is their journalistic bible. 6. Hyphenate compound adjectives. W it takes two words to describe the noun, those two words are a compound adjective. For example: He made a 10-yard run around right end. It is not a 10 run, nor is it a yard run. It takes both words to make it a 10-yard run. 7. Avoid using photographs with weak centers of interest. Zero in on one to four individuals for best results. When you get a large crowd in a photo, it's often hard to see faces well, and there's no focus point for the reader. Get in close. 8. Face your photos toward your story--not off the page. 9. Avoid posed photos. Action photos evoke the best memories and tell more of the history of the event or the history of the year. 10. Don't be afraid of large photos. A large photo creates an impact. If you're doing a photo spread in a yearbook or a photo page in a newspaper, have one photo that is at least twice the size of any other element. At the same time, don't be afraid of small photos. Postage-stamp size photos work well as long as you can see faces. It does little good to use a photo where faces are too small to be seen. 11. Crop photos tightly--normally within two picas of the center of interest, unless the subject is moving. If the subject is moving, sometimes the foreground he's moving into can add impact to the picture. Crop group shots at the waists of bottom rows and just above the heads of top rows. This tight cropping works best when there is an even number of people on each row. 12. Write leads which grab the reader. Use strong description. Set the scene. Make the story come alive visually. 13. Dig for outstanding quotes--the types that make the reader react. Play on his/her emotions. Find those anecdotes that will make a person laugh, cry, frown, grimace. Do use quotes--at least three in each article. Let the reader tell most of the story in his/her own words. 14. Keep writers' opinion out of copy. If you want opinion, let it be the readers' opinion through their quotes. Let the facts speak for themselves. Just make those facts come alive visually. 15. Keep your paragraphs short--normally 40 words or less. Short paragraphs look more enticing to the reader. Long paragraphs turn the reader off. Avoid one-paragraph stories. 16. Bury attributions in the middle or at the end of quotes. For example: "The Tennessee women are playing awesome ball again this year," said President Barack Obama. "They're my favoirite women's team to watch." 17. There is no better attribution for "said" than "said." Why use words like "remarked" or "commented." They're longer, and they don't say any more than "said." On occasion, another attribution might work better. For example, if someone "screamed," then say "screamed." That gets a message across better than "said." Avoid using "when asked," "continued," and "concluded." It's obvious the reporter asked the interviewee a question. If the interviewee says something, then it's obvious he continued, and if there is no more, it's obvious he concluded. Don't writte down to the reader. 18. Study professional publications for design ideas. Use graphics well, but use them sparingly. Don't use too many boxes. Keep the lines around your boxes thin--normally no more than one point in size. Do use a graphic device to highlight your caption openers. Use bullets, initial letters, mini headlines. Break up long gray areas of type. Try to avoid making the reader jump over an element to continue reading copy, however. Any time you stop the reader, or make him jump, he may not continue. Always be reader friendly. 19. Newspapers need at least one staff editorial based on a major news story in each issue. One person still writes this editorial, but the opinion expressed should be the opinion of the majority of the staff. Professional papers run two or more staff editorials in each issue. There's no reason why student newspapers should not do the same. 20. Watch agreement between noun and pronoun. Words like "team," "staff," "chorus," band," "faculty," and "administration" are singular. Follow those with a singular pronoun--it or its--not they or their. ___________________________________________________________ A Good Time for a Recap January is a good time to recap the top stories of the previous year at your school, in your community, in the state, in the nation and in the world. A recap can work well for newspapers, yearbooks or broadcast programs. You might survey your student body to let them determine what the top stories were. This is a good way to localize the off-campus coverage of events that impacted your students and your faculty. You might also survey the faculty to see how their responses differ from the students. A close-ended survey would probably work best where you give the respondents a choice of answers. However, one of your choices should be "Other." It's possible you might not have thought of everything the respondents might think of. After "Other," put the words "Be Specific," so you will get specific answers. Remember a good survey should be designed scientifically to assure accuracy. This means if you don't survey everyone that you should select your respondents randomly. Some professional pollsters say you need to survey 278 individuals in a group of 1000 or more to get a valid response. If you have fewer than 1000 students, you should probably survey all of them. If you can't survey every person, be selective in order to include both genders, all races and individuals from all grade levels. Besides writing a story on your findings, you might also create an infographic as a sidebar. Be sure to include the number surveyed as well as the percentage for each answer. A percent without the number surveyed means little to the reader. ___________________________________________________________
www.poynter.org If you haven't yet checked out www.poynter.org for great ideas, you should do so. The site has sections on design/graphics, diversity, ethics, leadership, online, photojournalism, writing/editing and TV/Radio. You should also check out the articles written by various Poynter columnists. Al Tompkins recently wrote one entitled "No Time For School Lunch." He shows how students have less time to eat lunch than they once did. An infographic which accompanies his article shows that high school students in 2003 had an average of 31.8 minutes for lunch. In 2005 that had dropped to 26.7 minutes. This might make a great story for high school publications. Tompkins also wrote a columnn entitled "Incentives for School Attendance." This would make another great story for scholastic publications. Chip Scanlon is another great Poynter columnist. Check out his columns entitled "Move Over Strunk And Whie: There's a New Kid in Town," and "Putting Endings First." He presents great ideas that will make students think about their writing. Check the Poynter website often as it is updated daily. ___________________________________________________________
Teacher Scholarships Available There are several scholarships available for teachers to use to attend summer workshops or take journalism classes. Don't miss out on applying for these scholarships. Quill & Scroll offers a $500 scholarship each year, and last year no one applied. The National Scholastic Press Association offers two scholarships--the H. L. Hall Fellowship for yearbook advisers and the Melinda R. Foys Fellowship for newspaper advisers. For each award, a $500 fellowship will be given to a qualifying teacher for a credit-bearing, university or college-based summer course in advising school media, or in a news-editorial program. Yearbook or newspaper advisers who do not have a college degree or a minor concentration in journalism and will advise a yearbook or newspaper during the following school year are also eligible. JEA also offers scholarships for teachers who want to attend its Advisers Institutes during the summer. Google any of the organizations, and you can get more details, including deadlines, for each scholarship. ___________________________________________________________
Great tips on writing, leadership, design, ethics, coverage, and law Check out Poynter.Org for great tips on writing, leadership, design, ethics, coverage, and law. Chip Scanlon, writing instructor at Poynter, discussed in one of his recent columns a new book by Arthur Plotnik, entitled "Spunk & Bite: A Writer's Guide to Punchier, More Engaging Language and Style." Scanlon says the book should challenge the best-selling "Elements of Style" by Strunk and White. It might be worth your time to check it out. Plotnik, Scanlon said, "zooms in close, helping writers deconstruct their prose from the ground floor--word to clause to sentence-up to paragraphs and chapters to our Holy Grail, a finished piece of writing." Scanlon said Plotnik's approach reminds him of a framed message he has on his desk, which is a formula devised by Pulitzer-Prize winning author, Richard Rhodes. The formula says: "If writing a book is impossible, write a chapter. If writing a chapter is impossible, write a page. If writing a page is impossible, write a paragraph. If writing a paragraph is impossible, write a sentence. If writing a sentence is impossible, writie a word and teach yourself everything there is to know about that word and then write another, connected word and see where the connection leads." This formula might work for those students who have trouble getting started on a writing assignment. Good luck! ___________________________________________________________
Noun/Pronoun Agreement When writing for print or broadcast, be sure there is agreement between nouns and pronouns. Collective nouns, such as faculty, band, choir, team, committee, group, orchestra and crowd take singular pronouns when referring to the group as a unit. For example, you would say "The team won its game," not "The team won their game." To avoid confusion, if you are referring to the team members, perhaps you should use the word "members" or "players" instead. If you did, it becomes clear, you should use "their" after "members" or "players." USA Today in its Feb. 8 edition had the following sentence: "An analysis of state foster care rolls shows roughly one in eight children in state custody at the end of 2005 was removed from their homes because their parents were making, selling or addicted to methamphetamines." The subject of the sentence is "one." The writer correctly followed "one" with the verb "was," which is singular. However, the pronoun "their" is plural. The writer should have used "his" or her" as the correct pronoun. Writing requires careful editing. Follow the maxim that "if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well." ___________________________________________________________
Ask a Reporter The New York Times has a regular feature called Ask a Reporter where a professional journalist answers questions from high school students. In a recent column, a student said "I find it very hard to start writing articles for my school newspaper. It's like as soon as I sit down my mind goes blank. What should I do?" Warren Hoge, the Times London bureau chief, responded. His response might be beneficial for all writers whether they are writers for print media or for broadcast stations. "I confess to you," he said "that I still have exactly the same problem you describe. So does every other writer I know, ranging from ones who write long books to those who write short stories. It's called writer's block, but it's not really depressing to admit to it because we have so much company. "I guess there's no solution, but the one I believe in is just start writing, get something down on the page. There's nothing uglier in a writer's life than a blank page, and nothing I would rather not have staring back at me. Once you have some words in front of you, even if they are a product of stream consciousness, you've got something to play with, to move around, to suggest narrative paths. Writing is a creative process, even if you're writing something so formulaic as a news story, so you just plunge in and let inspiration take over. "One last piece of advice?you'll never find the language gazing out the window. In my career as a New York Times correspondent, I have had offices overlooking Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Buckingham Palace in London, Pennsylvania Avenue in Washinton and Times Square in New York. In all four cases, I had to lower the blinds so I could get to work." ___________________________________________________________
Coverage Ideas Yearbook, newspaper and broadcast students are always looking for coverage ideas. Think anniversaries. November is the 60th anniversary of the Slinky, according to Reader's Digest. Probably, there are still some high school students who play with Slinkies, or they may have younger brothers and sisters who do. Anyone who has ever played with a Slinky probably has a good anecdote to tell. Dig for those memorable, unusual quotes that play on the readers' emotions. To find coverage ideas, look through newspapers and magazines. The Nashville Tennessean carried a story, Oct. 31 about the 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which polled 1,540 students in 450 high schools in the state. Results of that survey showed that 74.9% of the respondents had tried alcohol, 41.9% had tried marijuana, 5.6% had tried methamphetamines, 61.7% had smoked a cigarette, 12.2% had sniffed glue or "huffed" spray cans; 5.3% had used ecstasy; 54.7% had had sexual intercourse and 3.9% had used steroid pills or shots without a prescription. If this type of story is not too sensitive for your medium, you might conduct your own survey and compare the results to this statewide one. If this type of story is too sensitive for your medium, then look for other national surveys on less controversial topics, and then conduct a survey of your students to make a comparison. A good place to look for national surveys is in USA Today in their Snapshot infographics in the lower left corner of the front pages of most of their sections. Often those Snapshots deal with teen-related issues. Another coverage idea might be teenagers and blogs. USA Today had an interesting article featuring that topic in its Oct. 31 issue. According to the article at least 8 million teens blog, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That project released a report on teens and blogging, Nov. 2. Look for it. _______________________________________ October 2005 Tip Constitution Day By congressional mandate, all schools which receive federal funding must celebrate Constitution Day Sept. 17 every year. Carolyn Woodward, THSPA member and an adviser at Clarkrange High School, helped organize a celebration of Constitution Day at her school in 2005. Clarkrange actually turned the celebration into a six-day event. Following is the schedule of activities at Clarkrange. Friday, Sept. 16 - Watch National Treasure. Discuss the use of historical documents in the plot. Monday, Sept. 19 - Red, White and Blue Day. Any student who wore only red, white and blue received a Tootsie Roll Pop. Tuesday, Sept. 20 - Treasure Hunt. This was really a two-day activity. The first day students were given a question guide to answer that provided clues for day two. The second day they used those clues to follow directions and find a treasure. Wednesday, Sept. 21 - Students who memorized the 1st Amendment were given a piece of green paper they could redeem for a prize at any store in the world (in other words, a crisp new $1 bill). Thursday, Sept. 22 - Drama students, dressed in period clothing, were in the lobby during activity period. Students could sign a replica of the Preamble. Friday, Sept. 23 - Students produced an art show depicting historical scenes or patriotic themes. In addition every morning there was a You Be The Judge contest. Every morning there was a trivia question based on the 1st Amendment and the Supreme Court. One correct answer was drawn from all entries for a very valuable prize (a 100 grand candy bar). "We had a ball with this thing!" Carolyn said. _______________________________________
Lesson Plan Ideas Check out http://www.jmc.kent.edu/asne/resources/index.htm if you're looking for lesson plan ideas. Teachers who attended the ASNE workshop at Kent State in July developed these lesson plans as part of their required projects. Another great resource for teachers and students is www.highschooljournalism.org. This site, which ASNE hosts, also provides lesson plans as well as helpful tips for producing a publication. ASNE has also teamed up with the Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services to offer stories, photos, graphics, illustrations and Web content to high school newspapers. About two weeks of material updated daily is accessible. ASNE says the content is meant to supplement, not supplant the work of the high school newspaper staff. It also says schools who use this service avoid violating copyright laws. There is a one-time application fee of $50 which covers administrative expenses. For more information, advisers may contact Diana Mitsu Klos at 703-453-1125 or at dmk@asne.org. Advisers should also be thinking about taking their staffs to the JEA/NSPA convention in Chicago, Nov. 10-13. The convention will offer over 200 individual learning sessions at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, 151 East Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60601. Room rates are $189 (single), $189 (double), $209 (triple), and $209 (quad) per night. There is also a 14.9% tax per room per night. For more information about the convention, go to jea.org. Don't forget the convention will be in Nashville in November 2006. _______________________________________
Top 10 Ways to Be An Effective Adviser 10. Maintain a positive mental attitude. Praise often. 9. Don't look for failures. Be Firm. Be Fair. Be Flexible. Those are the only 3 F's an adviser should be concerned about. 8. Keep an open mind. Be an active listener. Every staff member's ideas should be respected. Every staff member should have a voice in all decisions. A publication is not the adviser's; nor is it the editor's. It belongs to all staff members who are creating it for the readers. 7. Recognize failure is often the first step necessary toward success. Help staff members learn from their mistakes. Most individuals who try something new usually mess up. Help them realize that results of a critique by some judge is not the end of the world if it is not totally positive. Learn and grow. 6. Maintain a good sense of humor. Laughter helps release tension, it promotes retention and it creates attention. It will be easier to survive the year if you know when to laugh. 5. Do everything with enthusiasm. It's contagious! If an adviser loses his/her enthusiasm for a publication, the staff will also lose its enthusiasm. 4. Never give up on anybody. Continue to encourage those staff members who do not meet with instant success. Without encouragement, staff members may quit. With encouragement, hidden talent may come to the forefront. Patience is a virtue. 3. Be a coach, but don't be a player. Make suggestions and critique the outcome, but don't make the plays. A math teacher would not solve the problems for his/her students. Neither should a journalism teacher solve the problems for his/her students. Students should do the work on a publication—not the adviser. 2. Help staff members stretch their minds. Urge them to try something different--something they have never ever seen done in another publication. However, always urge them to do everything journalistically well. A successful adivser is a planter of ideas and a developer of imaginations. 1. Be a motivator. Have fun! Lead the staff in a rousing cheer. Make up words to songs and sing them. Celebrate birthdays. Dress up for special occasions. Shake a pica, shake a pica. Shake a pole, shake a pole. Takes a mighty fine publication to satisfy my soul. _______________________________________
A Possible Story Idea The Poynter Institute posted a possible story idea on its web site March 21 that would make a good feature story for yearbook, newspaper or broadcast media. According to the post, only 21% of the nation's three million teachers are men. Over the past two decades, the ratio of men to women in the classroom has steadily declined, and today it is at a 40-year low. Currently in secondary schools, 35% of teachers are men--the lowest level ever for the profession. In elementary schools only 9% of teachers are males. Check out your schools to see what percentages of your teachers are males. Localize the above information by interviewing your teachers and students about the issue. Are there more males in some academic areas at your school than others? Why? The Poynter post said one of the reasons colleges of education historically have a tough time luring men to the profession is because of dated notions that teaching is women's work. Interview some of your parents to see if they believe that notion. Another reason Poynter cited is that teaching is not lucrative enough for men to be able to provide for their families. How do teacher salaries compare to salaries of other professionals in your area? This could make a great story. Good luck _______________________________________
Using Attributions All direct quotes in broadcast and print stories should be attributed. Statements of fact should also be attributed if it's not clear to the reader where the information came from. The best attribution is usually "said." It's a short four-letter word that takes little space. Avoid using words like "commented" and "stated." "Commented is longer than "said" and "stated" means someone made an official statement. Students do not generally make official statements, and most quotes come from students. Also avoid words like "went on," "continued" and "concluded." It should be obvious that the person quoted is continuing, and if he has nothing else to say, he must have concluded. The only time the writer should use an attribution rather than "said" would be if another word fit the situation better. If the interviewee responded by yelling or screaming, then use "yelled" or "screamed." That will rarely happen, however. Bury attributions in the middle or at the end of quotes rather than starting the sentence with the attribution. It is also best to say "Principal Jack Berry said..." rather than "said Principal Jack Berry. Writers would say "he said" and "she said," not "said he" and "said she." For consistency in style put the name or the pronoun in front of "said." _______________________________________
Font Selection Just because there are a lot of fonts available doesn't mean publications should use all of them or even several of them. Generally speaking, most newspapers should stick to one font for body copy and one or two fonts for headlines. Regardless, all fonts used should complement each other. Use special fonts only if they fit the content of the article, and even then they should complement other fonts. Jack Kennedy, a journalism teacher in Colorado, said his staff has selected Myriad Pro and Minion Pro as its one sans serif (without hooks on the ends of letters) font and one serif (with hooks) font. A "Pro" font means the entire family of the font is available from Light Condensed through Regular Black and letters may be italic (slanted) or Roman (straight). By using a variety of approaches from the same family, you can get complementary contrasts in your fonts. Selecting the proper font can give your publication personality. Don't merely copy what other publications are doing. Choose carefully. _______________________________________
ACT/SAT Practice Tests Anyone interested in looking at practice tests for the ACT/SAT might check out http://www.testprepreview.com _______________________________________
Get Active! To make your writing more concise and more clear, write in active voice--not passive voice. This will also force you to eliminate "to be" verbs from your writing. You should always use strong action verbs. Do not confuse passive voice with past tense. You can write active or passive sentences in any tense. A verb is in the active voice when its subject performs the action. It is in passive voice when the subject receives the action. For example: The students pondered over the correct answers. (active) The correct answers were pondered over by the students. (passive) Note in the examples the passive voice sentence is longer and it uses the "to be" verb "were." Generally, active voice sentences will be shorter, and writing sentences in subject, verb, object is more natural. When you have a "to be" verb followed by a helping verb, followed by the word "by," the sentence is probably passive. That does not mean all sentences with the word "by" are passive in structure. "The teacher strolled by the podium" is active, but it has the word "by." By learning the difference between active and passive voice, you will write tighter sentences. All writers for literary magazines, yearbooks, newspaper and broadcast programs should strive to write in active voice. Just remember, get active! _______________________________________
Twelve Steps to Writing Great Captions 1. Research! Research! Research! 2. Interview someone in the photo about what was happening just before the photo was taken and what occurred just after the photo was taken. Get the reaction to the action. 3. Name everyone in the photo, unless it's a large crowd shot. 4. Avoid beginning with "ing" words, names and prepositions. Start with interest-arousing words. 5. Use strong action verbs. Avoid "to be" verbs like "is" and "was." 6. Consider three-sentence captions in order to answer all 5 Ws and H. The first sentence should describe the action in the photo, and it should be in present tense. The second sentence could give additional information and be in past tense. The third sentence could be a direct quote from someone in the photo giving his/her reaction to the action. 7. Sports captions should always give the results of the action. If you say Briana Keightley goes up for a jump shot, tell the reader whether or not she made that jump shot. 8. Sports captions might also include statistics. If Briana made the jump shot, a second sentence might say how many points Briana scored during the game. 9. Identify group shots by rows going from Front Row to Back Row. 10. Do not use "left to right" in captions. The readers' eyes automatically go from left to right. 11. Identify opposing players in sports captions, when possible. In individual sports, like wrestling, it is always possible. In team sports, if you can see a jersey number of the opposing player, you can get his name. 12. Leave the writer's opinion out of the caption. Let the facts speak for themselves. _______________________________________
Several journalism organizations have web sites which high school journalists and advisers should access to learn more about scholastic journalism. Some of these sites have lesson plans, others have posted copies of their newsletters which contain excellent tips, and yet others contain news stories about happenings in the journalism world. Because a lot of these sites provide links to other sites, I will not attempt to list all of them, but check out the ones below for some good ideas. JIdeas.org SPLC.org Poynter.org HighSchoolJournalism.org JEA.org columbia.edu/cu/cspa studentpress.org uiowa.edu/~quill-sc dowjones.com/newsfund freedomforum.org nna.org rtnda.org snd.org Besides checking out the sites above, be sure to check this site regularly for tips each month and for information about MTSPA. _______________________________________
Jill Geisler, leadership instructor at Poynter Institute, says news managers often talk about their main fears at seminars she conducts. Their top fears include: • letting people down • losing respect • making a harmful decision • missing a big story • not spending enough time with their team These are the same fears most advisers and editors of scholastic publications also have. Geisler says Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton in their book "The Knowing-Doing Gap" suggest the following ways to overcome those fears: • Praise. • Encourage open communication. • Give people second (and third) chances. • Learn from, and even celebrate, mistakes. • Don't punish people for trying new things. There is no better way to eliminate fear than by praising. When a staff member earns praise, don't forget to praise. There are many ways to praise. Consider the following: • Give certificates for best story, best design, best headline, best caption, best motivator for each issue or each deadline. • Write notes letting individuals know what a top-notch job they have been doing. • Find unusual ways to say "very good," such as "this one flew out of the ball park" or "this deserves a Pulitzer Prize." • Make necklaces from yarn and call them "warm fuzzies." Give one to each student. Tell them when someone does something special for them to take the "warm fuzzy" off their neck and place it on the other person's neck. By the end of a work session, a lot of "warm fuzzies" should be exchanged. Ideas for praise are endless. A college professor once said it takes 28-42 positive comments to overcome one negative comment. The number depends upon the resiliency of the individual. Some people are more sensitive than others. Work on accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative. When you do that, the fear leaders have will disappear. Always remember that attitude determines altitude. Stay alive, awake, alert and enthusiastic and fear will disappear! _______________________________________ Debate continues as to whether or not to use an apostrophe after girls and boys when referring to a sport. For example, should it be girls' varsity basketball team or girls varsity basketball team? The Associated Press is also unclear on the issue. It says not to add an apostrophe to a word ending in s when it is used primarily in a descriptive sense: citizens band radio, a teachers college. However, is yo say men's basketball team or women's basketball team, an apostrophe is needed since those words do not end in s. They require the 's for possessive. At the high schoo level, it is best to refer to teams as girls' or as boys' teams, since the Associated Press says a girl becomes a woman at her 18th birthday and a boy becomes a man at his 18th birthday. Therefore, most high school students don't become women or men until their senior year or even after graduation. The key is to be consistent. If you think the team belongs to the boys or the girls, use an apostorpher after the s, but if you think the teams belong to the school, don't use an aostrophe. _______________________________________
JEA has selected the last week in February each year as Scholastic Journalism Week. How you celebrate this week is up to you, but you might consider some of the following: 1. Make posters promoting Scholastic Journalism Week to display in your school. 2. Invite a professional journalist of come to your school to speak to your class. 3. Take a field trip to a local media. 4. Have your students do research on some well-known professional journalist from the past or practicing today. Some people to consider would be David Brinkley, Walter Cronkite, Bernard Shaw, Helen Thomas, Allen Neuharth, Adolph S. Ochs, Ernie Pyle, William Allen White, Katharine Graham, Bob Woodard, Carl Bernstein, William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, Barbara Walers, Nellie Bly, Amelia Bloomer, Susan B. Anthony, John Siegenthaler, Frank Sutherland, Matthew Brady, Margaret Bourke-White, Dorothea Lange, Peter Zenger and David Douglas Duncan. 5. Have your students memorize the First Amendment and write a paper as to why they think it is important. 6. Have students give oral presentations on important Supreme Court cases relating to student rights, including Tinker v. DesMoines, Bethel v. Fraser and Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. 7. Make daily announcements over the PA system about the importance why a free press is important in society. 8. Survey your student body to see if they think a free press is important. 9. Discuss the Super Bowl halftime controversy. Should the FCC clamp down on inappropriate behavior on TV? 10. Survey your student body to see how many can name the five things guaranteed in the First Amendment. _______________________________________
This tip is from Jack Kennedy who teaches at Heritage High School in Littleton, Colorado. He is also vice president of the Journalism Education Association. Although it's Jack's tip, most writers would agree that "said" is the best attribution. Attribution tips After finally convincing reporters that use of excellent quotes — personality revealing quotes, full of "voice" — should be part of nearly all stories, you may be confronted with attribution weirdness. Students seem to revel in using alternative attributive verbs, like stated, laughed, opined... you get the picture. But the main verb they need is simply "said." Said is not only correct, but it carries no potential editorial baggage. It provides attribution but is almost invisible to readers. You can prove this to yourself by counting the use of said in any front page story from your own local pa per. Students will be amazed at how many times it is used. Once you get the attributive verb "said" firmly established, consider working on the order of the attributive phrase. Although "write like you talk" is advice that often leads writers astray, in this case the pattern "she said," as opposed to "said she" is superior. No one would ever say to a friend in the hall, "Said Mary to me last night..." A reasonable rule for attribution might be: 1. All direct quotes require an attribution phrase. 2. Use the verb "said." 3. The correct phrase order is "speaker said." One last thought: I see many stories that end with a direct quote, which is a good choice structurally. But the power of the quote is diluted when the final phrase of the story is "he said." The attribution phrase is best placed within the quote, or beginning the quote. Copy editors call this "burying the attribution." So one last suggested rule: 4. Don't let the final word a reader takes from your story be "said." _______________________________________
This tip is also from Jack Kennedy. Even though he is alluding to newspapers, the folios on some yearbooks also take up too much space. This is food for thought. We often follow a professional model when designing our papers. So why are our page toppers/folios (particularly on inside news, sports and entertainment pages) so gigantic? In browsing through dozens of papers at the D.C. convention, I saw page toppers that ranged in size from half an inch deep all the way to two inches. Using a long tab (11x17) as my basis, that means that a half-inch page topper consumes about 3 percent of the total page real estate available. A one-inch deep page topper eats up 6.25 percent of the page. If your format is smaller, the percentage just gets larger and larger.You need some sort of page topper, and should include the name of the paper, date of publication and page number. That can be quite reasonably accomplished with a single line of 10 point type in the outside corner of the page. Readers don't really need to be reminded so often (or so gaudily) that they are reading the school paper. Why not free up more space for "live news," or larger visuals? It's a new year. A perfect time to reexamine what we do and why we do it. Afraid to change page toppers in mid-year? Few readers will notice any change, as long as your page toppers get the job done. Readers don't want fancy page toppers. They want more news they can use. They want more stories about them, or their friends, or people they wish were their friends. Readers want more, and jumbo page toppers actually guarantee them less.Think about it. _______________________________________ Before deciding to print any article, a publications staff should ask the following questions: •Will it offend any readers? •Is it in good taste? •Does the reader have the right to know? •What is the purpose of the article? •Is it accurate? •Is it balanced? Does it present all sides? •Does it eliminate the writer's opinion, unless it is an opinion piece? •Why are we running this article? •What end will be served? •Should we consult someone of another race/ethnicity? •Do we have enough experites on other races/cultures to be sure we have covered their viewpoint sufficiently? •Have we explained the significance of the story? •Does anyone mentioned in the story need protection? Was this person involved in the story by choice or by chance? •Will the reporter cause considerable harm to someone just by asking questions? •What alternative approaches might the reporter take to minimize the harm of privacy invasion? Answers to the above questions should help a publications staff determine whether or not it should proceed with printing a controversial or sensitive article. _______________________________________
Bob Schieffer, chief Washington correspondent for CBS News, spoke to delegates at a JEA convention in D.C. He told them there were two good follow-up questions when conducting an interview. They are: 1. "What do you mean by that?" and 2. "Could you give me an example?" By asking these two questions, Schieffer said, the reporter will gain additional insight about the topic. _______________________________________
Coaching vs. Writing One role of an editor is to work with writers on ways to improve writing. The editor, however, should coach the writer not fix the writing. If the editor fixes the writing, the copy is no longer the writer's work. It's the editor's. • Fixing corrects errors, coaching corrects tendencies to write improperly. • Fixing is quickly done, coaching takes more time. • Fixing improves copy, coaching improves writing. • Fixing means finding fault, coaching means finding things to praise. • Fixing means correcting problems, coaching means focusing on ways to correct them. Nancy Ruth Patterson, a former high school adviser from Virginia, says one good way to coach writers is to have them ask at least five individuals the following questions: • What are the first words that come to mind when you think about the event? Why did you pick those words? • What are the first images that come to mind about the event? How did the event look? Smell? Sound? Feel? Keep asking questions until you come up with a list of details on which to base your story. • Why did this event matter to you or anyone else? If you cannot find out why it mattered, your story will not matter much either. • What was the biggest challenge facing the people responsible for the event? How did they meet the challenge? • What surprised you the most about the outcome of the event? Tell the writer to keep asking questions like the ones above until they have uncovered at least four differences that make the event you are covering stand out from other similar events. The differences are what makes a story interesting. When the writer finds at least four differences, he/she is on his/her way to a story that almost writes itself. The differences are always in the details.
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