Copy boy. The dirty work.

Jargon of the day: Copy boy

Copy boy, is an older term for a man or woman that keeps the newsroom running smoothly by answering phones, tending to office machines, organizing paper work, or running around town to get photos or other material for stories.

Since is sort of, undermining , to call a 45 year old man a "copy boy" the term has transformed into copy aide, or office assistant. These people do lots of jobs. They keep the newsroom from backing up and being unorganized. There might be 3-4 "copy boys" in a newsroom at once. Usually, they are out running errands for the paper, like collecting photos, gathering information or picking up material for stories.

Spread. The package deal

Jargon of the day: Spread

A spread is a big story with accompanying pictures and sidebars (mentioned in previous blog entry) that goes across the crease of two facing pages to combine them. Spreads are commonly found in magazines, but they can also be found in newspapers too.

A common spread that might appear in papers every year would be the day after the super bowl. In the sports section you might find a spread depicting the winning team with a story that covered the game and the big win for whatever team. There would be many pictures that goes along with this story and some sidebars, maybe about the teams stats or bio's on the star players.

Nut Graf. The imporant stuff

Jargon of the day: nut graf

The nut graf in a news story is the paragraph that tells readers what the story is about and why they should care. Some papers have rules as to how close this paragraph should be to the beginning of the story.

Nut graf is short for "nutshell paragraph." Meaning, in a nutshell, this paragraph will tell you what the rest of the story will be about. Some newspapers prefer that they nut graf come in the second or third paragraph into the story. Other papers prefer that the nut graf be the first paragraph in the story.

Lately, I have been following a story in the Pocono Record about a shooting in Saw Creek. The most recent story talks about the convection of two suspects in the case. The nut graf in this story comes in the third paragraph and said the following:

"After six days of seeing evidence and hearing testimony from 40 witnesses, the jury deliberated for less than four hours Wednesday before finding Harinarain, 19, and Culver, 20, guilty of second-degree murder, robbery, burglary, criminal conspiracy and carrying guns without licenses. They convicted Culver also of prohibited possession of a gun, since Culver has a juvenile criminal record."

This paragraph could be considered the nut graf because it pretty much sums up the rest of the story and informs the reader what is going on.

Sidebar. A little extra.

Jargon of the day: sidebar

The sidebar is a story that accompanies the main story. This story might detail a specific angle or aspect of the main story.

Say your local paper is running a story about a local fire fighter who saved a bunch of people from a burning building. A sidebar for that story might be a brief history about the fire fighters life. This would talk about how he became a fire fighter and maybe mention some other heroic things that he had done. The main story is about the fire fighters heroic act of saving people from the fire, but the side bar is just a little bit of history and information about him. Get it?

Okay, so now that you know what a side bar is, lets talk about a story that actually used a sidebar that worked well. This winter, I read a story in the Pocono Record about ice that had slid off of someones roof into the windshield of the car behind them. The person driving the car was not hurt, but the car had serious damage and the person driving could have been killed.

The sidebar that went along with this story was about how to be safe while driving in the winter, and gave a detailed description on how to safely clean your car off to prevent ice sling off your roof onto other cars. This worked well because it was directly related to main story about the driver almost getting killed, and it gave helpful tips on how to stay save in the winter.

Inverted pyramid. The important stuff first

Jargon of the day: Inverted pyramid


The inverted pyramid is a form of news story where the important facts of the story are listed first and then the smaller details follow. This method is used so that people get the heart of the story right off the bat. After someone has read all the important information in the story, they will most likely keep on reading all the smaller, less important bits of information.

The most important thing to remember when writing a news article is that you want to keep your readers attention. By using the inverted pyramid, your readers are engaged from the beginning.

Check out this story on the Pocono Record that uses the inverted pyramid style of writing to talk about a protest on the campus of ESU.

http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090226/NEWS/90226013/-1/NEWS

Check out the "mug" on this one

Jargon of the Day: Mug

If someone in a newsroom says "get me a mug" they don't mean a cup of coffee. A mug is a mugshot or a small photo of someone. These small photos help illustrate the story.

Typically, these "mugs" accompany stories where someone was arrested, or someone was charged with a crime. Their picture will usually run along with the story to show who the person in question is.

Everyone knows Lindsay Lohan right? Last July, Lohan was arrested for drunk driving and cocaine possession. The actress, 21, was driving at high speeds down a highway in Santa Monica. When she was pulled over she failed a field sobriety test and was found with cocaine in her pants.

This mug shot surfaced and accompanied almost every article that covered this story.

Photos like these help capture the essence of the story. The picture allows the reader to see that Lohan was less then "together" at the time of her arrest.

As "a-matter" of fact ...

Jargon of the day: A-matter

When the background of a story is outlined without having specific or important details about the story, that's called a-matter. It is also sometimes called a b-copy. It is useful to have the basics of a story outlined before your write it because 1) you have something to work with before you start writing and 2) it saves time when your working on a deadline.

The a-matter is basically the who, what, when, where and why of the story. After you have this information, the rest of the details will come later to make a complete story.


In the case of the 14-year old chimp who Mauled a woman in Connecticut, the a-matter of the story would be:
- where this took place: Connecticut, at the home of the chimps owners
- Who was involved: the victim Charla Nash and the owner of the chimp
- When it happend: Monday, Feb. 16th
- Why: reasons unknown

Basically, this chimp who was trained to do very human-like things attacked a friend of its owner out of no where and bruatally mauled her. This is why I dont have pets.