The makings of a good editor

Working as an editor can be a rewarding and frustrating experience, but a good editor is able to get through any problems and turn out a good product no matter what the circumstances.

A good editor needs to be able to work quickly and be able to focus on the content of the copy or the overall layout design of a page and work diligently to make an improvements that are necessary and do so while juggling many other editing tasks.

In addition, a good editor needs to have a good vocabulary and must know Associated Press style back and forth. As an editor is continually reading copy and making changes, the larger vocabulary the easier it can be to write corrections because the editor won't be needing to constantly repeat themselves, that is something that may happen if a lot of corrections are needed within a particular beat.

Editors also must be able to have a sharp eye for detail as they are often the last eyes to see copy or layout before they are sent to the printer.

Where does the news come from?

Asking me to say where I get my news from might as well be asking me to sit you down and have an hour long conversation.

I will try to make this short, instead.

SInce I work at WPXI-TV, I get a lot of my local news first hand. As it happens and is coming in from the assignment desk I'm writing the stories and preparing them for air.

When I'm not at work, however, I get most of my news electronically. Most of the time I get it online, but in the form of newspaper Web sites. If I'm looking for the most accurate and complete information on a story I usually will get the information from the online newspaper site or from national news Web sites like MSNBC and CNN.

I find myself getting a fair amount of my news content from Twitter, of all places. However, when I get news from this source, it's almost always headlines with links to articles or video clips of the stories from newspapers and television stations.

I still enjoy picking up a hard copy of the Post-Gazette when available and enjoy watching news when it's on the air.

Photo editing and lying

Images are essential parts of news stories. Well, part of any story, I should say.

However, images, in this case photographs, in news stories are the most important because they are telling what happened during an event or at a location where many other were not present at a given time.

A huge debate in the media industry with photography is whether or not edited photos, or "photoshopped" images, should be used.

In my opinion, I believe they should NEVER be used. If something is photoshopped, even if it is as simple as moving a golf ball around in a shot of someone golfing, it is should be considered false reporting and lying.

For a picture to be able to "tell a thousand words" if needs to be pure. Not be a picture that has something added or subtracted to get that thousand word limit.

In terms of using photoshop for editing photos for this project, I find it very difficult. I'm not a graphically inclined person and don't have the understanding or know-how to edit or touch-up a photo.

The above is a photo from the 3/30/10 PG after a person fell or jumped to their death from the Mellon building downtown. I really like the photo, despite the consequences of the fall.

Headlines, headlines, headlines

If there is one thing writing headlines has taught me, if you don't have the craft for it, it is a very difficult thing to do.

I am the type of writer that wants to always include too much information and have a hard time boiling things down to just the necessities. Although I'm finally get better at that in my articles, there is no way I'm any near that level with headlines.

A headline must be a mini-article. Without a headline, the article is nothing and no one is going to want to read it.

I tend to always want to create headlines that will make people want to read by using gruesome, often the most vivid words to grab attention. I may also think to do that because I'm a broadcast news writer and must always be writing to video.

At any rate, one of my favorite headlines was also the example of good editing I selected for class. In the March 21 Pittsburgh Tribune-Review the headline was Reality Check - however the "check" was a checkmark. I thought that was clever and since it was for a sports article, it was creative because I'd be used to seeing something like that in more of a political writing atmosphere than sports.

Journalism Blogs that really help

Two Web sites that I follow to help me with my writing and journalism actually came my way by way of using Twitter. I follow the Journalistics blog (http://blog.journalistics.com/) and the Associated Press Web site (www.ap.org) for tips and useful information about reporting and trends in reporting.

I started following Journalistics when I say it re-tweeted on Twitter by a fellow public relations student. I liked the tweet and subsequent post the blog made it made about successful tips for getting reporters to attend public relations events. Upon browsing the Journalistics blog more thoroughly, I found that it is much more than just offering public relations tips. In actuality, it offers trends and responses to current communication trends spanning public relations, print and broadcast media. This blog and it's posting have really helped me in my capacity of news editor for the university newspaper because they offer tips about certain ways to write or hook readers that I wouldn't think of to share with the other news staff or writers.

The second Web site I follow regularly is the Associated Press. I didn't originally use their Web site, but it wasn't until I started following them on Twitter that I've been using them more as a resource. Periodically, maybe three or four times a week, the AP will tweet about tips for style in print - mostly when it comes to current events that may not be regularly covered in the AP Stylebook or on their Web site. When I see a tip about a certain topic and how it should be printed it usually leads to me browsing the AP site for more information. I've visited the AP site frequently to find out more information about style tips and also take the occasional style quiz.

Project One

Project one was not the easiest of assignments for me, and that was because it required more along the lines of feature writing, rather than hard news reporting. I chose a subject to write about that I was relatively familiar with, however, feature writing is not my forte. The writing of the project pieces was the biggest challenge. I tried to overcome this by making my articles slightly longer, to fit more information and try to do a more hard-news article format.

Journalism III

The English language is the language of Satan.

No, I'm just kidding.

Tonight's grammar lesson in class proved such a thing. I don't believe I've had a formal grammar class since seventh grade in middle school and certainly haven't done homework involving grammar and that parts of speech since maybe an SAT prep course in high school.

I spent much of my Sunday night working on the assignments. Some of the exercises triggered something in my mind about the parts of speech and proper usage - others I had quite a time struggling with.

After completing the assignments and turning them in for a grade tonight, I realized how weak my skills are when it comes to grammar. I'm used to writing, but I guess when it comes down to it, I don't really recall what it is I'm exactly writing. In a sense, it's just words on paper.

I'm excited to be taking this class now and getting the "refresher" or perhaps complete reworking of grammar and the English language so I can be more effective as a writer as the semester rolls on and I begin to look for jobs in the communication and journalism fields.

Even still, tonight, English grammar feels like the work of the devil. I intend to defeat Satan as the semester continues and focus on become a stronger writer by developing a better understanding of the parts of speech.

One of the ironic things, my father is an English teacher who focuses his classes around grammar.