Editing Across Media Editing Across Media CONTENT AND PROCESS IN A CONVERGED WORLD Editing Across Media Ross F. Collins ABOUT THE EDITOR Ross F. Collins is a professor of communication at North Dakota State University, Fargo, and senior editor for the university’s book publishing di- vision, the NDSU Institute for Regional Studies. A former newspaper photographer, copy editor and public relations practitioner, he has taught editing since 1985. Col- lins has published or edited four books and many scholarly articles. He is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and American Copy Editors Society. Col- lins received a Ph.D. in history with a journalism emphasis from the University of Cambridge, Britain. Chapter One: Editing Across Media Margot Opdycke Lamme Margot Opdycke Lamme is an associate professor in the Department of ABOUT THE AUTHORS Advertising & Public Relations at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Her research, focusing on public relations history, has been published in American Journalism, Atlanta Review of Journalism History, Journal of Communication Management, Journal of Public Relations Research, Journalism & Communication Mono- graphs, Journalism History, Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, and as part of several book chapters. She serves on the1 editorial boards of Journal of Public Relations Re- search, Public Relations Review and American Journalism. Chapter Two: Editing Begins with the Writer. Mavis Richardson Mavis Richardson is an assistant professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where she teaches journalism and public relations writing courses. Before going into teaching, she worked for more than 12 years as an assistant news editor for a weekly newspaper in North Dakota. She received her Ph.D. in mass communi- cations from the University of Minnesota.2 vi EDITING ACROSS MEDIA Authors vii Chapter Three: Think like an editor. Chapter Eight: Beginning the Design Process Deneen Gilmour Amy Mattson Lauters Deneen Gilmour is an assistant professor of print/online journalism at Min- Amy Mattson Lauters is an assistant professor of mass communications at Min- nesota State University Moorhead. She has taught editing, writing and conver- nesota State University, Mankato. A former print journalist and freelance designer, gence journalism for ten years, and has published a number of scholarly articles Lauters is also editor or author of two books: The Rediscovered Writings of Rose Wilder about convergence media. Before returning for graduate study, Gilmour spent 16 Lane, Literary Journalist, and More than a Farmer’s Wife: Voices of American Farm Wom- years as a daily newspaper reporter and3 editor. She holds a Ph.D. in communication en 1910-1960, both through the University of Missouri Press. She received her Ph.D. from North Dakota State University, Fargo. in mass communications from the University8 of Minnesota. Chapter Four: Editors, Ethics and the Law. Paulette D. Kilmer Chapter Nine: Page Design on Paper and Screen. Paulette D. Kilmer graduated from the University of Illinois-Urbana/Cham- Therese L. Lueck and Val Pipps paign with a doctorate in media studies. She teaches reporting, introductory re- Therese Lueck is Professor of Communication at The University of Akron, Ohio, search methods, media ethics and communication history at the University of To- where she teaches journalism and other media courses and researches women and ledo, Ohio, where she is a full professor. Besides contributing chapters to books and media. She received her Ph.D. from Bowling Green, Ohio, State University in Amer- entries to encyclopedias, she has written two books, journal articles, and conference ican culture while teaching journalism in the School of Mass Communication. Pro- papers. 4 fessionally, she worked stints as a section editor at the Nashville Tennessean, copy editor at the Toledo, Ohio, Blade, and,9 through an American Society of Newspaper Chapter Five: Headlines and Headings. Editors residency, news copy and features editor at the Houston Chronicle. Chris Roberts Val Pipps is an assistant professor at The University of Akron, Ohio, where he Chris Roberts has been writing headlines since he was 14, when he became teaches journalism courses that focus on Web and print design and writing for the sports editor of the weekly in his hometown of Jacksonville, Ala. He has been a Web. He worked as a journalist for more than 30 years in all facets of the newsroom reporter and editor since then at newspapers in Alabama and South Carolina. He before becoming a full-time teacher. He received his Ph.D. from the S.I. Newhouse earned a doctoral degree from the University of South Carolina, where he taught School of Public Communications, Syracuse, N.Y., University. advanced editing. He now teaches editing5 (among other classes) at his undergradu- ate alma mater, the University of Alabama. He is co-author with Jay Black of Doing Chapter Ten: A Final Project. Ethics in Media: Theories and Practical Applications, published by Routlege in 2011. Victoria Goff Victoria Goff is chair of Communication Processes at the University of Wiscon- Chapter Six: Typography Then and Now. sin, Green Bay, advisor to the university’s student newspaper, and editor of Voya- Jim Martin geur, a magazine of Wisconsin regional history. She spent more than 20 years as a Jim Martin is a professor of journalism at the University of North Alabama, journalist, editor, publisher and author. She holds graduate degrees from the Uni- Florence, where he teaches copy editing, communication law and ethics, and vari- versity of California-Los Angeles. ous news writing courses. He is the former editor and publisher of a weekly news- 10 paper and a national religious monthly. From 2005-2010 he was editor of American Journalism, the journal of the American6 Journalism Historians Association. He holds a Ph.D. in journalism from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. Chapter Seven: The Visual Editor. William E. Huntzicker William E. Huntzicker has been a reporter and editor for the Miles City, Mont., Star and the Minneapolis Associated Press. He has written numerous articles and a book on nineteenth-century journalism. He has taught history, reporting, photog- raphy and publications editing at several universities, including St. Cloud, Minn., State University, the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. He received his Ph.D. in American7 Studies from the University of Minnesota. viii EDITING ACROSS MEDIA Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................... xi Editing Across Media .........................................................................................1 Editing Begins with the Writer .........................................................................19 Think Like an Editor .........................................................................................55 Editors, Ethics, and the Law .............................................................................81 Headlines and Headings ...................................................................................99 Typography .....................................................................................................121 The Visual Editor .............................................................................................141 Page Makeup ...................................................................................................161 Design on Paper and Screen ............................................................................185 Case Study: Editing a Magazine .......................................................................205 x EDITING ACROSS MEDIA Introduction ditors in the new millennium have faced enormous technological change. Duties and routines that lasted a century or more have fallen faster than tight deadlines at big dailies—that is, if those dailies still ex- Eisted. Some are gone. The rest are surely online, either incidentally or totally. Editors who could do an excellent job of working a written story into a polished showpiece found that this considerable skill was no longer enough. Today many editors have to do more, know more, be more. They have to mas- ter technologies that reach beyond copy editing. They may write headlines for Search Engine Optimization and construct blogs for reader discussion. WHAT IS AN EDITOR? They may Tweet the news and tweak the pictures for presentation in print or on screen. They may design pages and opine in social media. They may The traditional copy even write stories based on material transmitted from reporters, and certainly they editor is becoming a will brainstorm the multimedia packages readers expect in a converged media content editor. world. Editing, like all journalism, has become a process. But editors today don’t all work in news operations. Editing is critical to all com- munication, including public relations and advertising. Many writers in these areas also are editors, the roles blurred, but the expectations still high. Writers should know how to edit. Editors must know how to write. And they’ll probably do both. The challenge is to produce in one textbook a series of chapters that touches on all jobs listed under the title “editor” in the 21st century. We decided it’s impos- sible to do alone. If editing students today are more and more expected to learn it all, textbooks need to draw from many areas of expertise to help them learn it. This text attempts to address