Recommended podcast

Since we all work on Macs, I encourage you to subscribe to this podcast in iTunes:

Apple Quick Tip of the Week

It is a short (minute or less) weekly session, detailing a Mac shortcut.

What work related podcasts do you listen to? I also enjoy Media Artist Secrets, but it is sporadic and geared towards graphic artists and illustrators.

— Brian

Text wrap, breaking news online training session

InDesign tip:

In yesterday's design session, I touched on some of the finer points of using text wrap. I ran into some trouble wrapping text around a clipped photo and, as I suspected, this was because I was dealing with an .eps file rather than a .tif file. (Seems I've been using the wrong preset in the new RTC setup, delivering .eps files to me, instead of the preferred .tifs.)

Anyhow, the middle, round shaped text wrap option is the one you'll want to use if flowing text around a clipped photo.

One of the other tips regarding text wrap I touched upon was the use of the beloved Apple-B keystroke which brings up a screen on which, among other things, you can click an "ignore text wrap" option (helpful for captions).

Finally, I pointed out that sometimes when columns of text won't line up beneath a photo, it could be a function of a lack of text wrap offset on that photo.

Publicus tip:

Rob Johnson expressed an interest in learning how to post a breaking news story (adding a headline across the very top of our homepage).

The key to adding a story to that position lies in assigning the story a keyword of "WDHBreaking". I reviewed the significance of the different colored boxes that precede a headline in the story list in Publicus.

In review: The red boxes indicate taxonomy and if you scroll over the boxes, the taxonomy will appear in a little box. Green boxes indicate a keyword has been added. This is likely a "WDHBreaking" keyword to place a headline in the uppermost part of our homepage or a "WDHMultimedia" keyword used to place a headline in the Multimedia content well of our homepage. Yellow boxes indicate a story has been added to a special section (a theme has been added to the story).

If you have other Publicus questions that you can't find an answer to, consult this part of our Gannett Intranet.

— Brian

Slugs, anyone? 'E' at a glance

What's with this gun-toting gastropod? It all started here.

Or maybe you missed a chance to discuss what the future holds for copy editors. Check out Liz's post here.

Or want to read something shocking? Or is it electrifying? Either way, click here.

Slugging it out

I've been noticing, for the past few months, that there seems to be some confusion about the correct way to slug stories in NewsEdit.

The correct way is: Publication (WDH, SPJ, WRT, MNH) Date (0426) slug (Biofuel)

Things to keep in mind: If you don't put spaces between the publication and the date, the story will not send to the Web correctly. If you put more than 1 space between publication and date and slug, the story will not send to the Web. If you put a space AFTER the slug, the story will not send to the Web. If you make your slug more than one word using a space between them (i.e. Tax Day or Obit Smith) the story will not send to the Web. The use of commas, quotes, dashes, etc. means the story will not send to the Web. A story NEEDS to be slugged publication, date, slug (one word).

Fact boxes should have identical slug names to the story they go with (including capitalization) and then have _aa after the slug (without a space between).

We spend a lot of time correcting slugs so things can be sent to the Web correctly. If everyone would just slug things correctly, it would save us a lot of time and probably make things easier on reporters, too. Just something to keep in mind.

--Kristy

In the news, about the news

Noted Madison newspaper to print final daily

This story first appeared in our state news section about 2 months ago when the announcement was first made: The Madison Capital Times is going to a purely online format, with two weekly tabloids (one about entertainment, one being a news magazine) still being published.

Being journalists and seeing as how we're focusing so much on our online content ourselves, I'm curious to see what our opinion of this is. It looks like the Capital Times has been hurting for a long time — that current circulation of 17,000 is really low for a city of Madison's size — so it's not a big surprise.

-Benton

Placing your dates and times

I've noticed with increasing frequency one common error that must tediously be changed each night.

It has to do with coming events. I've seen them listed in all manner of ways, but only one is correct and its proper use will save the copy desk precious time.

When listing a coming event in a story, AP style is time, date, then place. For example: The show will be at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the theater.

Time ranges also are often entered incorrectly. If the event involves a time range, that should include the a.m. or p.m. with both times and be separated by the word "to." For example: The meeting will be from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The most common reason for this to be incorrect, I'm guessing, is that these items often come from news releases via e-mail that are just copied and pasted into the NewsEdit file. Many of these releases do not conform to AP style, so a little extra care should be taken after they have been copied.

So in the future, please remember to take a little time to get the date placed properly.

-- Andrew

Diagnosis incorrect

Something I've noticed lately, and which happens to be a pet peeve of mine, is the incorrect use of the word diagnosis. You cannot diagnose a person. You can only diagnose a disease. A doctor can give a diagnosis of, say, mono, but a person cannot be diagnosed with mono. However, a person can receive a diagnosis of mono.

I bring this up for two reasons. 1. to make sure I have it right since I've been changing it on proofs lately. And 2. if I am right, as a friendly reminder to editors and reporters. If I'm not right, someone please let me know asap.

Any other pet peeves anyone has they'd like to bring up?

Killed to death

An item posted on the WDH Web site last night:

Electrocution reported

Wausau Daily Herald

Emergency personnel are responding to a report of an 11-year-old girl who was electrocuted, according to a Marathon County Sheriff’s Department emergency dispatch.

A call came in at about 7:30 p.m. from a residence on Chicago Avenue in Wausau. The girl was breathing and trying but unable to speak, according to the dispatch.

***********

If you're electrocuted, you are not breathing and you are not trying to talk. Sorry, but you are dead.

Same thing if you drown or are hanged.

We meant to write that the girl received an electrical shock.

(I am aware that this Web post did not go through the copy desk before publication. Hoping that reporters and front-line editors read this, too.)

— Mark T.

Relaxing the rules

In today's design session, I discussed several rules that we operate under that can be relaxed a bit when we get stuck with a design problem on a page.

The upper-most page was our best attempt using what we were given for copy (the page only had about 900 words, at least 300 words short of our preferred minimum count) and photos (we were asked to run the photo of the jug large enough that the label was legible, probably two columns).

Working on the page under these rules resulted in a page design that was pancaked (all stories arranged horizontally) and with a pair of photos that ran at nearly the same size.

I took a crack at redesigning the page throwing out these two rules and adjusting another:

1. Pages should be built using the six column grid: The use of "bastard" measure can open up new design avenues and can be explored when working on the six column grid isn't working. The second example from the top using bastard column widths on the top two stories.

2. Photos can be cropped, if necessity dictates: As often as possible, photos should run using the crop provided by the photographer. In the case of this page, one or both of the photos needed to be cropped to create a photo hierarchy on the page. I'm not sure how well the jug would've reproduced at the size I worked with, but I think it would have been ok.

3. A 1A page designer can rearrange the promos to better fit your page design: What made the page above so difficult to design? Two things. A lack of essentially one story and a main photo that is horizontally oriented. When you are dealing with a lack of copy (three stories) on a page and a horizontal photo as main art, pancaking will probably occur. Because you will want to run the horizontal photo as wide as possible, there will be no shoulder story and you'll be forced to play one story above and one below. Switching from skybox promos to a rail would ad a vertical element to the page, see the bottom example.

In an effort to avoid pages that will pose design problems like this one, I am revising my initial 44" request to editors to encourage editors to shoot for four stories at an average length of about 300 words each. Based on conversations with Kerry, I think this will be better than our too much/too little dilemna since the conversion.

What do you think?

— Brian

Old records

Apparently, on Sunday, records from 2007 (I believe) appeared on page 2A. I wasn't here, so I don't know who did this page, but I do know this is an easy error to make (I've done it before myself). The only way to tell that records are old is to look at the time/date stamp on the lower corner of the file. At least, that's the only way I know to tell.

Since this has happened before, it makes sense that we should figure out a way to prevent it from happening again. I've gone through and deleted all the files in public records that are older than a couple of months, but as far as I know, there's no way to make Newsedit delete old files for us.

How to do we make sure the records we are posting are current? We tried a records budget before, but it fell away. (also using a records budget didn't prevent old files from being published in other papers).

So what's the answer? Anyone have any ideas?

--Kristy

Does it work?

How useful is the checklist box that was added to our templates a couple of months ago? It was added to ensure (among other things) that the UPCs on our covers were accurate.

I'll acknowledge that it is a bit of a pain to remember to remove the checklist before a pdf is created (although there may be a way to make it a non-printing item).

So, does it work for us? I ask because if it isn't useful, let's get rid of it. If it isn't being used, let's discuss why. If it isn't being used because it isn't useful, let's replace it with something that does the job.

— Brian

Where are we?

Do we cover central Wisconsin, or Central Wisconsin?

I really am not sure what the answer ought to be, so I thought I would ask the experts to help us come to a decision and be consistent from there. Some editors in the Central Wisconsin Group have been capitalizing the "C" in central, and others (including me) have stuck with the longstanding practice of lowercasing the "c."

The AP Stylebook bounces around the issue under the "directions and regions" listing, but notes, "If in doubt, use lowercase." If you read the entire entry and you are not left "in doubt," you are either a genius or an idiot.

Good arguments can be made for Central as our local style, however. It is a distinct region of the state that we consider to be "our" coverage area, so we should claim it and make it a proper name. Also, it is the formal name of one of our Sunday print editions, "Central Wisconsin Sunday," so should we not give "Central" the same treatment throughout our news content?

Anyway, I'm undecided. What do others think?

— Mark T.

Something funny

I know these posters have been around for a few years, but I stumbled on this link and many of them cracked me up:

http://www.despair.com/viewall.html

I'm especially fond of the dysfunction one.

Enjoy.

— Brian

P.S. Does anybody know how to make a link like the one above a "hot link" in a post?

What do you like?

Document of the Day made its debut last week.

The concept was simple and implemented quickly and, I think, gives us another local item in our paper.

I'm guessing we're not the first paper to use this idea.

Are there other items like Document of the Day or design techniques or content ideas or contests or whatever that you have seen in other papers that would be fun/useful for us to include in our editions?

And on a side note, what papers (outside of the four in our group) do you like to look at?

I'll answer the second item myself. I like the San Antonio Express-News and always get a kick out of some of the Spanish-language tabloids that I find when I'm visiting my in-laws.

— Brian

Apostrophe abuse

Earlier this year, I was reading a major metropolitan paper, and I was shocked to find an apostrophe error on the front page of the life section. ("Glacier's decapitated the city's hilltops.") Apostrophe abuse doesn't seem to be a common problem among professional reporters and copy editors, but sometimes we slip.

For example, the difference between it's and its seems so minor that an error can be easy to create or overlook if we're not paying close attention. Another common apostrophe mistake (and one that I've seen in a local paper recently) is the tendency to add an apostrophe when adding an s to make a proper noun plural. (Mr. and Mrs. Wilson and their son Jacob = the Wilsons, not the Wilson's, right?)

I think when we were in elementary school, our apostrophe use probably was perfect. But after that, when we were forced to move at a quicker pace, we became a little less careful. In fact, apostrophe abuse has become so rampant that it can be amusing and confusing. Check out an entire site dedicated to documenting the problem.

Look around you, and I feel confident you will spot an apostrophe error in the next couple of days. (I only hope it's not in a newspaper.) Could any punctuation mark be more abused? With an increased apostrophe awareness, I hope we can eliminate errors.

~ Elizabeth

White space around centers

In the last week, there have been a couple of instances when our use of extra white space (I believe our rule is 2p around centers, rather than the 1 p we would use around other stories) could use a little tweaking.

Here is part of what our outdated design style guide says about white space:

White space

Judicious use of built-in white space can lighten up a dense section-front centerpiece package or add some class to a centerpiece design. The irony of white space is that it does nothing, yet is a great attention-getter. Careful consideration must go into building white space into your package.

Indent more for large packages: Major packages, those that include multiple entry points, should be given extra emphasis with a larger indentation than standard 1 pica.

The final item is what I'm addressing in this post.

The extra white space around a center should not apply to the edge of the package if that edge is the outside edge of the page itself. The example from this week's MNH GO! cover is a perfect one. The space at the top of the page works (with no "header" on this page, it works well to drop the top of the photo below the level of the top of the GO! logo, giving the GO! logo dominance). The space at the side of the page, not so much.

I'll admit to being guilty of this design technique in the past, but will try to change my ways. With our narrower page, I no longer think we can "sacrifice" this extra space on the page edge side of a center package.

— Brian

Why Advisers with an 'E'?

When I was trying to think of some witty thing to title this blog, one of the first things to come to my mind was "adviser." The word "adviser" fits in that I'm hoping this blog functions in some ways in an advisory capacity, both between the copy editors and between the copy desk and everybody else, but the truth of the matter is that the Associated Press style on "adviser" has been a source of constant puzzlement to me.

The Associated Press standard is to spell the word "adviser," according to my stylebook. Colloquially, I've always seen the word spelled as "advisor" (although looking now at dictionary.com, it's spelled both ways). But the rule is inconsistent; "advisor" can be spelled "adviser" (based, presumably, on the word "advise"), but "supervisor" is never spelled as "superviser" if we apply that same rule. The Associated Press spells the word "supervisor," presumably; there's no entry in my stylebook that it should be spelled any other way. So in my mind, it's a weird idiosyncrasy that a word should be spelled one way but a similar word spelled a different way.  And further, we call it an "advisory," not an "advisery," adding a whole new weird dimension to the usage.  (apstylebook.com's "Ask the Editor" feature is strangely silent on why "adviser" and not "advisor.")

These are the strange things I think about.  And so we hope to similarly get you thinking.

-Benton

Revisiting our Style Guide

The Daily Herald's style guide hasn't been updated since 2005. My plan is to update the guide by the end of this summer (or sooner).

Yesterday's meeting in which we discussed the use of guides reminded me that in the style guide we had defined how guides were to be used. Here is what our style guide currently says:

Rules rather than boxes

Our new design uses 0.5 pt rules to separate stories, instead of boxes.

A vertical rule defines the story
to its left. Rules need 1p of space on each side. Once a vertical rule starts it runs until it hits the top of a story, ad or the bottom of the page.

This doesn’t mean we can never box a story, especially on inside pages, but our basic philosophy is to use rules.

Here is what the style guide says about grading headlines:

Headlines are important design elements
The headline is one of the most important components in a newspaper. Obviously, they are the devices that “sell” stories. Readers decide from those few carefully chosen words whether they want to read a story. The words MUST be the right ones and not (as Mark Twain said) their second cousins.

Headlines also play a vital role in design. A poorly written head can ruin a great-looking package and turn readers off, sending them in search of more attractive “looking” words.

Hierarchy is the way we “grade” stories on a page. The most important story carries the largest, boldest headline. The other stories receive progressively smaller heads.

On 1A, Local, Sports and Sunday Business covers we employ the lead and centerpiece approach. The lead is the page’s top story and usually is hard or breaking news. It gets the Swiss font. The rest of the headlines use Nimbus. It is our new serif-face that replaces the Century family. The centerpiece is the story with the dominant art and often is more featurey. The center can also be the lead and then would get the Swiss headline. Only one lead headline is used per page.

The lead headline font is wdh-Swiss 60 pt (Swis721 BlkCn BT).

All other headlines are wdh-Nimbus (NimbusRomDBol).

Headline size

Lead heads should be a minimum of 60 points, preferably in the 66 to 72 point range, especially for 1A.

As a rule, there should be at least 8 points difference as we grade our way down the page. So, if your lead head is 66 points, the next biggest head should be 54 points. A good guideline is to make the center head the next largest and to make it in the 48 to 54 point range. The smallest headline for a 1A story should be 28 to 30 points.

Deck heads

These subheads’ primary purpose is to further sell a story, to tell another important part of the story that couldn’t be told in the main head. They generally should be half the size of the main head, with the smallest being 18 points. The deck heads will be wdh-Deckhead 20 pt (Swis721 Cn BT).

Centerpiece aboveheads

The centerpiece aboveheads will be wdh-Swiss 60 pt (Swis721 BlkCn BT) and resized to 15 pts. These can be included above the centerpiece headline and should be dark red (100M, 100Y, 5K).

Is the style guide something worth updating? Should we give it a permanent home here in this blog? Are there other items you'd like added to the style guide?

— Brian

Spellcheck can't go it alone

I've been keeping a small list for the past month or so. You see, spellcheck is a pretty easy way to make sure nothing is too egregiously misspelled. If you've got extra letters or the blatantly wrong letter somewhere, spellcheck has got your back. But there are some errors spellcheck just can't catch — when a typo creates a different, but still real, word. They're usually phonetically similar words — if you were to follow the story along, reading it aloud in your head, you might not notice them until it was too late.

Here's my list of typos that created completely new words that spellcheck wouldn't have caught. Sadly, I didn't write down the context for some of them. (Disclaimer: All of these were caught and changed well before their respective stories went to print.)

1) "a serious of events." Serious = series.

2) "being conscience of the event." Conscience = conscious.

3) "the teachers' onion." It is such a large and important onion, multiple teachers have to be a part of it. But we were pretty sure they meant "the teachers' union."

4) "a message on a marquis."  This one sent me to the dictionary just to be sure, but "marquis" is a title of nobility. Context from the story led me to substitute it for "marquee," a sign.  A marquis could have a message if he wanted to, but there aren't many of those in Wisconsin.

And my personal favorite...

5) "going to asses the situation." Now that is a situation I don't want to be in; I'd rather assess it beforehand.

So after you run spellcheck, make sure to check the individual words of the story.  I am being completely series when I say let's not make assess of ourselves.

-Benton

Welcome

Welcome to Advisors with an 'E,' the brainchild of Mark Treinen and myself and the official blog of the central Wisconsin copy desk.  We'll keep you informed about what goes on at the copy desk and share our thoughts about writing, copy editing, layout and other newspaper topics.

-Benton