The Editor’s Desk

My visit to China is done, and although I’ve adapted once again to Eastern Daylight Time, I’m still thinking about my experience half a world away.

My colleague Laura Ruel and I spent about a week working with journalists of the China.org news site. The English-language site has a staff of about 30 people, including a few Americans.

I was impressed with the dedication and skills of the China.org staff. It’s a different sort of journalism — run by and controlled by the government, created in an environment where Facebook, Twitter and most blogs are blocked. Yet, the staff there is doing much of what their Western counterparts do: trying to figure out the best to get the news to readers, in both form and content, while on constant deadline pressure.

I was asked to speak to the staff on several topics:

• Story editing

• Headline writing

• Caption writing

• Alternative story forms

I covered each of those topics in workshop sessions at the China.org offices. Each went well, and with each session, the staff grew more comfortable asking questions and offering comments.

On my final day in Beijing, I worked with staff members one on one in the newsroom. This was the most rewarding part of the week because I got to help people with the stories, captions and other content that they were working on at that moment. I also got a surprising compliment from one editor: “Thank you for your help. And I would like to say that you are very handsome.”

Thanks to everyone at the site for their hospitality, and special thanks to Celine Chen for organizing the trip, showing us the city and and allowing us to bring a little bit of U.S. journalism to China.

This blog will be quiet for much of October because I am going to Beijing for part of the month. I will be training journalists at an English language news site on topics such as headlines, captions and alternative story forms.

This trip is part of UNC’s ongoing relationship with this site. Here’s how it works:

• In the spring, two Chinese journalists come to Chapel Hill for a semester and sit in on courses of their choice. They often select News Editing as one of those courses.

• In the summer, two UNC undergraduates work in Beijing as summer interns at the site.

• On occasion, faculty members travel to China for a week or two to lead workshop sessions. Previous visits led to the site’s recent redesign.

I’m excited about this opportunity and look forward to sharing my experiences when I am Stateside again. I hope to be able to offer updates on Twitter as things go along.

Thanks for reading, and see you later in the month.

I’ve spent part of my summer working with 12 talented students at UNC-Chapel Hill on Powering A Nation, a Web site that looks at the intersection of energy and demographics. The site, which debuted Friday, is part of the News21 project.

As one of several faculty coaches, I advised the project’s editing team on issues of work flow, story editing, alternative story forms, word choice and headlines. It was a pleasure to work with this group in our newsroom.

It’s important to note that members of the editing team also served as reporters. As reporters wrapped up their stories, they were sometimes drafted for other duties, including help with editing. As you can see on the site’s “making of” blog, everyone did a bit of everything.

The idea behind News21 is to serve as an incubator for multimedia journalism, where students can chart a course for the future of news. My time with the students this summer reinforced my belief that editing will play a significant role in that future.

A front-page story in The News & Observer last week set off an unusual exchange of letters to the editor.

The news was the arrival of financier Bernard Madoff at a federal prison in Butner, N.C. The letters weren’t about Madoff so much as the tone and approach of the story, which was written as a letter to Madoff with tips on how to get used to his new home. Some readers cheered; others jeered.

Here’s a look at how the story came together from two N&O journalists and the reaction to it from two of my colleagues at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UNC-Chapel Hill:

MANDY LOCKE, reporter

THE BACK STORY: “I wish I could take more credit for the approach, but it was actually Steve Merelman (1A editor) who asked me to take this approach. The story of Madoff arriving had little news value. We’d already heard and learned much about Madoff’s misdeeds, so this was a story, quite simply, about him coming to North Carolina. There was much intrigue about Butner in general, and the facility was in our backyard. Ignoring his arrival altogether was never an option. … The story took a surprising  amount of reporting. There’s much I didn’t know about Butner.”

READER REACTION: “Some readers LOVED it. I’ve gotten about a dozen e-mails and calls praising the ingenuity and thanking me for making them laugh. About a half-dozen readers shook their fingers and said our approach was sophomoric and unnecessary.”

THE AFTERMATH: “We’ll never please every reader with every story. I like to think of  the newspaper as a buffet. You take some stories and pass on others. As things are getting more desperate in newspapers, I think we’re more willing to try new things. This approach most certainly was.”

STEVE MERELMAN, front-page editor

THE BACK STORY: “We had originally planned an alternative story form. But after giving the news that Madoff had come to Butner, I couldn’t see what we might say that could be interesting. I’ve read the “Hey, here’s what that prison’s like” story before, and I didn’t think that breaking it up into bits and pieces would improve it much. So I suggested that Mandy give it a spin by pitching the ASF right at Madoff, sort of a user’s guide to Butner. Mandy came up with the letter idea on her own. We kept the headline pretty straight and let that and the picture carry the news and serve as a serious counterpoint to Mandy’s article.”

READER REACTION: “I expected that some people wouldn’t like it. They have certain expectations of how a newspaper should sound, and this contradicted those expectations. I’m glad they take us and our responsibility seriously. I also expected that some people would find it refreshing, and they did. We tried to keep the tone a little impertinent but not cruel, and to make sure that it fulfilled all the usual requirements of a news story — who, what, where … and whatever the other Ws are.”

AFTERMATH: “Mainly, I was pleased that lots of people read the piece. I’m not in favor of provocation for provocation’s sake, but a newspaper that isn’t read has got real problems.”

REACTION FROM THE J-SCHOOL

Phil Meyer, author of “The Vanishing Newspaper” and retired journalism professor: “When I read it, I thought the writer cared more about showing off than giving the news. It’s not ‘interesting writing’ that will save newspapers; it’s interesting facts. And that takes work. This story puts the reader to a lot of trouble with not enough new information or insight to justify the effort.”

Chris Roush, journalism professor and blogger at Talking Biz News: “I’m OK with it. Not the biggest fan of such stories. I think they’re better as columns.”

MY TAKE

Newspapers must experiment to survive. Now is not the time to be timid. Not all of the experiments will succeed, but that’s the point of trying something different.

This particular story needed something beyond the typical inverted pyramid approach. That kind of story was available online almost as soon as Madoff arrived at the prison. For the next day’s print newspaper, editors and reporters have to deliver something that readers haven’t seen yet.

This story, gimmick and all, did that. It’s more about Butner than Madoff, but for the Raleigh paper, that’s the local angle.

Was this approach to this story risky? Yes. But it fit the medium and the moment.

UPDATE: The links on this post have been broken because of a resdesign of the N&O site. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Pam Robinson at Words at Work has taken note of yet another article about the future of newspapers. This piece, posted on The Moderate Voice, mentions some ill-considered advice from an editor at a New Jersey newspaper:

Restructure the newsroom. Half of the journalists are involved in the “processing” of news — copy editing, writing captions, laying out pages — as opposed to the generation of journalism. Concentrate on journalism that matters. And “focus on good writing. Tales well told.”

Robinson smacks down this argument, pointing out the valuable rewriting and fact checking that copy editors do. (It’s a point also made in a widely discussed column by the Washington Post’s ombudsman.) Robinson also mentions the necessity of production — copy editors and page designers are the ones who put the pieces together for print media. If they don’t do that, who will?

I’d like to build on Robinson’s response and suggest that copy editors are journalists, or “storytellers.” Here’s how:

• Copy editors write cutlines. Most photographs need explanation and detail that link them to the text they go with. In standalone photos in print and in slideshows, the captions and images must work together to tell a story. Either way, copy editors make that connection.

• Copy editors are experts on story structures. That makes us essential in deciding what form best matches the stories we are trying to tell.

• Copy editors write headlines, which both reflect the story text they accompany and tell stories on their own. Indeed, many headlines are just as memorable as the stories themselves, if not more so.

These are just three ways that copy editors are storytellers. We are journalists, just like the reporters, photographers and page designers in any newsroom. We believe in the importance of “tales well told” as much as our colleagues do.

In short, we generate plenty of journalism. Is that so hard to see?

The D-Day anniversary was front-page news in The News & Observer on Saturday. The centerpiece story in the Raleigh paper was a profile of a sailor who was there. He is now a retiree living in North Carolina.

As expected, the story weaves in the history of that day in 1944, when the Allies pushed into Nazi-occupied France. This background in the story, however, leaves out some crucial details.

For example, the story mentions Normandy, but never places those beaches in France. It’s risky to assume that readers know that. Another paragraph threatens to overwhelm readers with an avalanche of numbers.

All of this could have been better handled in a locator map and textbox, perhaps in a Q&A format. Here are some questions to answer:

• What is D-Day? Why is it called that?

• Where and when did it take place?

• How many people fought on D-Day, and how many were killed and wounded?

• What is its broader significance?

When newspapers remember D-Day next year, let’s hope they also remember to explain it to readers who need a primer on this important moment in history. Perhaps bookmarking this at the BBC site will serve as a reminder.

One of my favorite features in The New York Times is the “36 Hours In…” series. Each week, a travel writer recounts a destination and describes how to spend a day and half there.

It’s travel writing in an alternative story form: introductory text followed by a timeline. That consistent format, unlike a traditional narrative, allows readers to easily skim the story if they choose. It also breaks up the text into more digestible sizes. Yet those bite sizes add up to something nutritious.

Should all travel writing be done this way? No. Long-form narratives and first-person essays still have their places in the genre.

But the “36 Hours” series is an example of how to approach a story in a different way. And yes, it works online. In fact, I have never read these stories in print, just on the NYT site.

Look for your favorite destination on the map, or search the entire series. Happy travels!

Students in my Advanced Editing course are contributors to The Editor’s Desk this semester. They are free to write about whatever they wish, provided that the topic fits the theme for this blog: “thoughts on editing for print and online media.”

This is the 12th of these guest posts. Elizabeth Templin is a second-year master’s student and Roy H. Park Fellow from Charlotte, N.C. She has focused on news writing, editing and multimedia during graduate school. She hopes that she will find ways to save journalism in a new job.

Newspapers have been in the news a lot lately. In case you haven’t heard, newspapers across the country are having a hard time staying financially afloat. Publishers are taking steps like laying off staff, creating online-only editions and outsourcing copy desks. With all these changes, it’s a good time to think about the future of copy editing and ask what role copy editors play in saving journalism.

Even though the future of journalism is uncertain, there are a few things copy editors can do to help out.

1. Copy editors can play a huge role in attracting readers to newspaper Web sites.

Newspapers have got to find ways to make Web sites generate more income, and one way to do that is by increasing readership, which is measured in page views or the number of pages visited by individual readers. Copy editors can help bring readers to Web sites by writing great headlines and story blurbs.

Copy editors writing headlines for the Web should go beyond writing the clear, catchy headlines that appear in print editions. Online headlines should be noun-heavy so that when the average reader is searching for information, such as “Obama puppy,” on a search engine like Google, they are directed to the newspaper’s Web site.

Copy editors should also make sure that headlines make sense out of context – away from the accompanying text, pictures and cutlines – since a reader might first encounter a lone headline on a search engine or RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed.

Once a headline has drawn a reader to the newspaper’s Web site, a well-written story blurb can help turn one page view into many more. Similar to drop heads, story blurbs are one or two sentences below the headline that give readers a sense of what the story is about. Good story blurbs are timely, highlight key information and provide details that pique reader interest.

2. Copy editors can look for ways to present content in alternative story forms.

In print editions, alternative story forms tend to be more engaging to readers than blocks of text. For Web sites, alternative story forms can take engagement to the next level by creating opportunities for reader interactivity, like clicking on a map, viewing a slideshow or taking a quiz.

3. Copy editors can allow reporters to break the rules of journalism in blogs.

More reporters are using blogs to instantly update news stories and communicate with readers. While making sure that a newspaper’s blogs are accurate and free of embarrassing errors is important, overlooking some journalism rules is OK.

4. Do what copy editors do best.

Copy editors play a big part in guarding newspapers’ credibility by ensuring that published content is accurate and error-free. In doing this, copy editors ensure that newspapers earn readers’ trust and offer readers something your average blogger may not: reliable, fact-checked content.

These are just a few ideas. What else can copy editors do to save journalism?

Lauren Purcell is deputy editor at Self magazine. As one of two Purcell Sisters, she is also the co-author of “Cocktail Parties, Straight Up!” Although she learned her editing chops at UNC-Chapel Hill, Purcell is loyal to her undergraduate alma mater and always pulls for the Duke Blue Devils.

This Q&A, conducted by e-mail, takes a look at Purcell’s job and the tasks of editing at the magazine.

Q. Describe your job. What’s it like to be a deputy editor at Self?

This job is amazingly varied, which is part of what I love about it, but I’ll describe my main role. Magazines have what are loosely called assigning editors as well as top editors who provide another editing layer for the content the assigning eds produce. I act as the top editor for Self’s fitness, fashion and celebrity/entertainment coverage, as well as a front-of-book gazette-style section and various special sections and one-off projects. At various times in the past, I’ve overseen health, beauty and nutrition. (I’ve been here for quite a while, and switching things up every few years has helped me stay fresh.)

Q. You had some newspaper training and experience earlier in your career and in graduate school at UNC-Chapel Hill. What are the differences between editing for newspapers and editing for magazines?

A. My newspaper experience was very brief and many years ago, and newspapers have, to my mind, increasingly employed what I think of as magazine-style strategies since then. But one major difference—and it’s one that makes editing magazines especially challenging and creative—is that the text and visuals are inextricably entwined on many magazine pages, as opposed to an image, drawing or chart serving simply as an illustration, as is more typical in newspapers. (For instance, at Self, we might conceive an entire story as a chart, rather than writing a story and then enhancing it with a chart.) The need for writer-editors to think visually, craft stories in an array of formats beyond straight narrative and collaborate with layout designers makes for a very rich editing experience.

Q. Many journalism students want to go into magazine editing. What advice do you have for someone trying to break into the business?

A. When I’m interviewing someone for an entry-level position, I want him or her to show me a passion for magazines. Apply for internships — sure, those at major national books are great, but having several gigs at smaller publications shows me just as much dedication. Write or edit for on-campus or local magazines. I want to know that you pursued every avenue to be involved with magazines on some level. And of course, read magazines voraciously and be able to talk about them with enthusiasm.

Q. The magazine industry, along with other segments of the media, has been hit with layoffs and cutbacks in recent months. What do you see as the future for magazines in print and online?

A. I’ve been hearing about the so-called “death of print” for years now, and yet, Self’s audience continues to grow both in print and online, and readers tell us they value both experiences. The increasing vitality of online efforts by magazines isn’t evidence that the print model isn’t working — to the contrary, it shows that we’re learning how much we can enrich both the pages in your hand and those on your computer screen by having them work together. I rarely edit a piece these days without making plans for what its presence online at Self.com can add for the reader — extra content, interactivity, mobile access, etc. Though the current climate feels very tough, from where I sit, magazines (not all, but many) have a bright future.

The Somali pirates make for an interesting story. Whenever they seize a ship, they make news, and copy editors get to use “pirates” in headlines.

Coverage of the most recent act of piracy has been interesting to observe too. The Huffington Post couldn’t resist using an “ARGHHH!” headline and file image of a pirate flag. Cable news offers each incremental development in the story as “breaking news.”

U.S. newspapers have been more restrained in their coverage. Yet they are missing some opportunities to provide the context that other media are overlooking. That sort of context is a strength of newspapers, in print and online.

First, this locator map from The Associated Press is as bare-bones as they come. The map needs to include an inset to tell us where in the world this is. Somalia, like South Ossetia, isn’t easy for most people to find on a globe. Beyond that bit of basic information, expanding the map to show shipping lanes and pirate strongholds might be helpful too.

Second, some explanation is needed with this story. We need a pirate primer, and a textbox is an ideal way to address questions that readers may have about this story. Here are some categories to use in setting up an alternative story form about the Somali pirates:

• Who they are

• What they want

• How they operate

• How they can be stopped

• What’s next

And hey, maybe put the map into the textbox too, like this Q&A from the BBC does. And put it online. These are the things newspapers can do to set themselves apart from their competitors.