Journalism Class - Tuesday November 8

[jerusalem-s.livejournal.com]

Spider has a mug of coffee and a slightly more cheerful look on his face. He's seated again on the top of his desk and sharing his cigarettes with his cat. Swinging his heels, he addresses the class. "Grading's almost finished, up to and including the midterm, and I'd have to say that I'm impressed. Well, with those of you who are still with us, anyway. Attendance has been above and beyond the call of duty and participation has been very, very high. Grades, credit and attendance reports will be available by Friday for the curious."

Taking a swig of coffee, he gave his students an evil grin. "Which means that the final project for the term is going to be a doozy. I'll be giving you over a month to put together the article that I'm asking for, however, and I'm in final negotations with a few people before actually assigning it, however. I am very, very pleased with the amount of class participation."

There was a pause as he waved the cat away from his coffee before she got cigarette ashes in it. "Today I have an ethical question related to yesterday's discussion on slant - specifically the remarks concerning the journalist who seemed to draw from only one source and leave a great deal of detail to one side. Some of this is due to editing for space, some of it is sloppiness. When you have only a very specific number of column inches in which to tell your entire story... what do you cut first?"

Comments

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"I would start by trying to reword sentences. A lot of people tend to write in a flowery, rambling style that not only doesn't read well for a paper, but uses valuable space."

[jerusalem-s.livejournal.com]

"A very good place to begin. You'll note that many newspapers have a very distinctive flavour or certain key phrases which turn up. This is an editorial method used to help staff keep within their column inches and on that regular readers can recognize and interpret easily."

[marsheadtilt.livejournal.com]

Veronica nods.

"I agree with Rory. Tightening up the narrative can cut column inches without jeopardizing the integrity of the article."