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The Rotation
Three lab periods -
March 5 (practice session), March 26 and April 9 - will be used for the rotation assignment.
The class will be broken into groups of three, which I will select.
The groups will produce a news page for each of these labs, rotating
through different editing jobs: metro editor, copy editor and page
designer.
You will work together as a team to get at least five stories, photos
and a column of briefs on to a news page, and you must get it done
within the two-hour lab period. Alternating weeks will be used for
feedback and criticism.
You will be helping each other, but your general duties will be:
Metro Editor: Makes decisions about news judgment. Decides
which story is the lead and the order of importance on the page. Edits
stories for newsworthiness, accuracy and style. Should take care that
leads are strong, appropriate to the content and are supported by
the facts within the rest of the story. Should also make sure there
are no unanswered questions or flaws in logic. The metro editor also
writes captions and as needed will consult with the copy editor and
page designer when questions arise on page layout and headlines. The
metro editor follows AP style and submits copy that is as clean as
possible.
Copy Editor: Conducts line-by-line editing of the news copy.
Ensures that rules of AP style, grammar and spelling are followed.
Checks accuracy of stories, cutlines and factoids. Checks facts and
spellings from the story against those in cutlines and factoids. The
copy editor writes headlines and dropheads, based on the amount of
space determined by the page designer. The copy editor also looks
for errors in logic, math and unanswered questions that may have been
missed by the metro editor. These errors are either fixed by the copy
editor -- in consultation with the metro editor -- or by the metro
editor, who takes the story back and rewrites the copy. The metro
editor will also help cut the stories to length, according to the
space on the page.
Page Designer: The page designer is also a copy editor, but
the primary duties are in designing the page. The page designer decides
how the photos, graphics, stories and headlines will be combined on
the page. The page designer seeks a modular design with dominant art
that commands the reader's attention. Headline sizes should be clearly
distinguished from each other, with no headline closer than 8 pt.
in size from the next headline. This means that if the lead headline
is 60 pt., the next largest headline should be no more than 52 pt.,
and the next no more than 44 pt., etc. The page designer can work
on a preliminary design before the news copy is ready, using either
early drafts of the copy or "dummy" copy. However, page designers
who do this should be prepared to make adjustments to their design
if final story lengths are different from what was planned.
Notes: The news copy will be similar to what a working metro/news
desk at a newspaper would encounter. That is, it will be as submitted
by reporters who have tried to be clear and follow AP style. However,
bear in mind that some reporters try harder than others. So, some
copy will need more editing than others. Make sure you turn in your
dummy layout pages with a signoff-sheet.
Here is an example of a scoring sheet, which
I will use to evaluate your work. After each rotation, you will be
getting your files returned to you corrected by me. The files will
look like this or this.
Links
Rotation teams
Rotation 1
Rotation 2
Rotation 3
IMPORTANT - Advice on how all this works. |
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