Editing, headlines, layout and photojournalism

Journalism and Mass Communication · Journalism skills. The idea in plain words, the rules to remember, the mistake to avoid and a worked example, written and checked by Mega Lecture.

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The idea

Editing turns raw copy into a finished page. The sub-editor (copy editor) checks facts, grammar and spelling, removes anything defamatory, cuts the story to fit the space and writes the headline. On paper this is done with standard copy-editing symbols.

A headline tells the main point of the story in a few accurate words. It normally has a verb in the present tense and the active voice, and leaves out articles.

Layout arranges stories, pictures and advertisements so that the page is attractive and easy to read. Pictures are news too: photojournalism reports events truthfully through images, and every picture needs a caption.

Rules to remember

Stet: 'let it stand'; ignore the correction. Three short lines under a letter: make it a capital. The paragraph sign: begin a new paragraph. The transposition mark: change the order of letters or words.
Headline: accurate, short, specific, present tense, active voice; no opinion and no detail that the story does not support.
Layout principles: balance, contrast, proportion and unity.
Dummy: a sketch of the page showing where each item will go. Nameplate: the newspaper's title on page one.
Broadsheet: the large page size. Tabloid: about half that size.
Caption: the text under a photograph; it names the people and adds facts the picture cannot show.
Cropping (trimming a picture) is acceptable. Adding, removing or staging content in a news picture is a breach of ethics.

Common mistake

Headlines are often written in the past tense, as in 'Floods displaced thousands'. News headlines use the present tense for recent events: 'Floods displace thousands'.

Worked example

Improve this headline: 'A new hospital was opened by the Chief Minister in Multan yesterday'.

Remove the articles and the word 'yesterday', which a headline does not need.
Change the passive voice to the active, so that the doer comes first.
Put the verb in the present tense.

Answer: 'CM opens new hospital in Multan'.

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