The Alligator is recruiting section editors and online staff. We are currently accepting applications for all positions. All students interested in getting involved with the Alligator this fall are encouraged to apply.
- A section editor is in a management position, responsible for finding, assigning and editing stories for grammar, content and style. Additionally, a section editor must communicate with other desks in the newsroom to work on collaborative projects.
- Online staff members help produce the paper daily, create multimedia and work on special online projects. Students with experience in video editing, HTML/CSS, Javascript and/or content management systems are preferred.
The deadline for submissions is August 21. Phone interviews will be held in the order that applications are received. It is possible that the position will be filled prior to the Aug. 21 deadline, so students are encouraged to complete the attached application as soon as possible. All applications should be sent to apply@alligator.org.
April 6, 2009 - Brigham Young University's student paper, the Daily Universe, made a very interesting typographical error.
Instead of typing the word 'apostles' into the caption of the photo published in their newspaper, somebody 'accidentally' slipped in the word 'apostates.' The caption reads the phrase as 'Quorum of the Twelve Apostates' rather than 'Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.'
Which by all accounts is hilarious.
But Brigham Young University is feeling the heat. And the local media are having a field day with the story.
Apparently, some 18,500 newspapers were recalled to be completely reprinted and students were simply notified to visit the newspaper's website until the new editions were published and distributed.
From AP: burglary, larceny, robbery, theft Legal definitions of burglary vary, but in general a burglary involves entering a building (not necessarily by breaking in) and remaining unlawfully with the intention of committing a crime.
Larceny is the legal term for the wrongful taking of property. Its nonlegal equivalents are stealing or theft.
Robbery in the legal sense involves the use of violence or threat in committing larceny. In a wider sense it means to plunder or rifle, and may thus be used even if a person was not present: His house was robbed while he was away.
Theft describes a larceny that did not involve threat, violence or plundering.
USAGE NOTE: You rob a person, bank, house, etc., but you steal the money or the jewels.
Because there has been some confusion between a burglary and robbery (and admittedly it can be confusing, but we as journalists want to use words as correctly as possible), I offer up two stories from the Sun that helps make the distinction I hope.
Here is the burglary story. Nowhere does it call him a robber or mention robbery. It does note he may be suspected in some thefts (maybe stealing stuff out of peoples’ cars or back yards or open garages) and other burglaries. MAKES THE DISTINCTION
Man arrested in burglary where homeowner hit on head
An arrest has been made in the case of a homeowner who walked in on a burglary and got hit over the head.
Levy County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Michael David Santerfeit, 38, of Chiefland, on Friday.
He was charged with burglary, aggravated battery and grand theft for the Sept. 20 incident.
According to Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Evan Sullivan, Santerfeit broke into a home in the 9800 block of NE 65th Lane outside Bronson. Once inside, Santerfeit allegedly stole medication and other items worth more than $300.
The homeowner told deputies he got back to his home around 5 p.m. and saw that the back window had been broken. He told deputies that he walked in and was hit on the head with a crowbar before his attacker fled in a white Ford Escort. The victim was treated at the scene. He identified Santerfeit from a photo lineup and told deputies the man had done some odd jobs for him previously.
Sullivan said Santerfeit is also a suspect in several thefts and burglaries in Levy County and likely will face additional charges. Deputies are asking anyone with information on Santerfeit or who may have seen a white, four-door, Ford Escort being driven suspiciously in their neighborhood to call Investigator Mark Morgan at 486-5111. Callers can remain anonymous by calling Crime Stoppers at 877-349-8477.
And here is one in which the guys is pulling up to open garages and grabbing stuff. No break-in here. It is a robbery.
A 64-year-old woman and her 63-year-old husband teamed up to thwart a would-be robber at their home Sunday afternoon.
Maryjane and Michael Schaer told Gainesville Police that at about 11:40 a.m. they saw a man drive a 2008 Dodge SUV up to their open garage door in the 2000 block of NW 15th Avenue. The couple said the man began loading their power lawn tools — including a leaf blower and a generator — into the back of the SUV.
Michael said when he approached the man, the man tried to drive away.
Meanwhile, Maryjane got into the passenger seat of the SUV and turned off the ignition, reportedly telling the man not to leave. Michael told police he was at the driver’s door dialing 911 on his cell phone and trying to get the man to get out of the vehicle.
The man allegedly grabbed a knife with a locked blade from the console of the SUV and was opening the 4-inch blade when Michael began hitting him. The blows prevented the man from using the knife and he ran off.
According to an arrest report, the man was found on a creek bank a short distance from the Schaer home. The man was identified as Thomas William Sinnott, 50, of Alachua. He allegedly told police he would drive around and look for open garage doors so he could steal lawn equipment.
Sinnott was charged with robbery with a deadly weapon and burglary of an occupied dwelling for the incident at the Schear home. Police also charged him with failing to return leased property for not returning the SUV to Enterprise Rent-A-Car.
According to arrest records, Sinnott picked up the SUV from Enterprise at the Gainesville Regional Airport on Aug. 5 and renewed it for the next few weeks. Enterprise employees told police that when he quit renewing and paying for the rental, they went to his home, but neighbors told them he had moved out a week earlier. When he was arrested, Sinnott allegedly told police he had not made any payments for the leased vehicle in several weeks.
KEY WORDS: For every headline you write in this lab you are expected to put above the headline several key words. I will take off points if they are missing.
For purposes of this class, one column = 2 inches
Also, every story you edit should also include an online headline of about 12 to 15 words labeled as the "online hed."
Case is the grammatical function of a noun or pronoun. The three cases in modern English are subjective (he), objective (him) and possessive (his). They may seem more familiar in their old English form - nominative, accusative and genitive. There is no dative case in modern English.
First though the good news. You cannot really go wrong here, we have shed most of our cases and as a result English is easier than many other languages because nouns and some indefinite pronouns (anyone, someone, everyone, and so on) only have a distinctive case form for the possessive. However, a remnant of old English is that pronouns have distinctive forms in all three cases and must be used with care.
The pronoun cases are simple. There are just three:-
1. Subjective case: pronouns used as subject.
2. Objective case: pronouns used as objects of verbs or prepositions.
3. Possessive case: pronouns which express ownership.
These pronouns, and who and its compounds, are the only words that are inflected in all three cases (subjective, objective, possessive). In nouns the first two cases (subjective and objective) are indistinguishable, and are called the common case. One result of this simplicity is that, the sense of case being almost lost, the few mistakes that can be made are made often, even by native speakers, some of them so often that they are now almost right by prescription.
Communities' recovery paces differ Bouncing back from disaster could take longer in less-well-off areas
State Attorney's Office gets astronaut case file Nowak's arrest prompts review of psychological screening
N. Korea agrees to nuke deal Main reactor to shut down within 60 days
One Year Later Golden Mosque Is Still in Ruins Deep Scar in Sunni City With a Shiite Shrine
Hybrids become more of a tough sell Incentives offered on many models as gas prices fall
Seven Dead in Iraq Crash U.S. chopper goes down near Baghdad, fifth U.S. aircraft lost in the past month
Narrative Drop (or Dek) Hed Examples (Here, the second hed narrates a short story. It is written like a sentence, includes all the sort of words that would be excluded from a standard headline, and includes all the appropriate punctuation, including a period at end)
Quickly, here is an example of the difference: Standard Hed:
Small towns, big dreams County’s rural cities see downtown revitalization as key to survival VS. Narrative Hed:
Small towns, big dreams The county’s financially strapped rural cities are hoping the ongoing efforts at revitalizing their downtowns will be their key to survival.
Narrative Examples
Grammy Vindication The Dixie Chicks’ big win has exposed tensions between Nashville and Hollywood.
Ovations in Her 60s Anja Silja’s life and career are intertwined with legends.
So what does $250,000 get you these days? The median resale price of a home in Central Florida has hovered at a quarter of a million dollars for almost a year, and analysts worry that figure could begin to fall.
Troops doubt intelligence quest in Iraq A recent sweep for car-bomb makers in Iraq has shown that successes for U.S. intelligence will take time to produce results.
For spelling, style and usage questions not covered in this stylebook, consult Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, published by Wiley.Use the first spelling listed in Webster's New World College Dictionary unless a specific exception is listed in this book.
If Webster's New World College Dictionary provides different spellings in separate entries (tee shirt and T-shirt, for example), use the spelling that is followed by a full definition (T-shirt).
If Webster's New World College Dictionary provides definitions under two different spellings for the same sense of a word, either use is acceptable. For example, although or though.
If there is no listing in either this book or Webster's New World College Dictionary, the backup dictionary is Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, published by Merriam-Webster Inc.
Geographic Names
Webster's New World College Dictionary is also the first reference for geographic names not covered in this stylebook.
FOREIGN: The first source for the spelling of all foreign place names is Webster’s New World College Dictionary as follows:–Use the first-listed spelling if an entry gives more than one.–If the dictionary provides different spellings in separate entries, use the spelling that is followed by a full description of the location. If the dictionary does not have an entry, use the first-listed spelling in the National Geographic Atlas of the World.On the Net:www.nationalgeographic.com
NEW NAMES: Follow the styles adopted by the United Nations and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names on new cities, new independent nations and nations that change their names.
IS IT OPINION OR GOOD REPORTING AND AN EXAMPLE OF WRITING WITH AUTHORITY?
In an unusual twist to the sometimes bitter fight over bilingualism in Miami, complaints have been filed with the Dade County Fair Housing and Employment Appeals Board by two women … VS Complaints have been filed with the Dade County Fair Housing and Employment Appeals Board by two women …
I raise this issue because it is an issue that arises often.
Editors here removed the clause in front of complaints –
“In an unusual twist to the sometimes bitter fight over bilingualism in Miami,”
because they felt unusual is an opinion term and didn’t feel it was necessary.
I WOULD DISAGREE – IT GIVES CONTEXT – IF THE WRITER KNOWS WHAT SHE OR HE IS TALKING ABOUT REGARDING THIS SUBJECT, I WOULD SAY LEAVE IT IN.
And, you would never remove it unilaterally. You would consult first with city desk or even the reporter.
As Professor Foley told you in reporting, it is the job of the journalist to make sense of a confusing world.
Often a good reporter who knows much about a subject and writes with authority can inform his or her stories with this kind of contextual matter derived from the hard work of reporting.
Certainly, these editors have good instincts here, but they need to be cautious. It is a balancing act and the editor needs to ensure that reporters do not say more than the truth.
This, of course, is WHY editors have to be aware of all the news in their community and nationally and internationally.
The issue arises again here -->
The issue of bilingualism has led to heated debate in Miami.
Editors note that heated sounds like opinion.
Here, again, the reporter is writing with authority and can say this if history shows it is so.
The photo at the link below was selected as “best photo” by the Associated Press Managing Editors Association on the basis of:
Composition
Technical quality
Strong news value
Visual appeal
The question for you to answer in a comment to this post is: Would you use this photo. If yes or no, please explain why. Add your answer as comment to blog item. (There really is no right or wrong answer here. Just be able to defend your actions to your editor. (Grading: X if you do, 0 if you do not.)
This is a blog post from an education reporter in Indiana--just two years out of school. She's talking about the equipment she carries wtih her, which includes several digital/multimedia items. It's also noteworthy because of the "other" things she carries, such as a lint brush to present a professional image.
How are you doing? I hope all is well as the new semester begins.
I just wanted to let you know that I am now officially a member of the MLB.com editorial team. I watch baseball games and produce all the online content surrounding them.
I know this is both unsolicited and perhaps not helpful, but I was asked to make a humorous introduction to the online world to present before a journalism class recently -- and I thought I would send you the short list I developed as well. It just lays out a few points regarding things that I didn't really know coming into the job that I thought would be really helpful for students getting ready for their first job online.
A Copyeditor’s guide to the Internet The “How to watch baseball all day and get paid handsomely (well, not really) for it” Guide
The new job title is “editorial producer.” It means little else than the Internet is too cool to have “copyeditors,” but you might win a few points with a recruiter if you know it.
Editing a story is called “producing” it, and putting it onto the Internet is called “sending it live.”
Learn how to write grabbing subheds. That’s right, everything gets a subhed. Some tips: Use present tense, use a clever headline and put the bland news in the subhed.
The hours are horrible, and there’s no way around it. Be prepared to work from sundown until sunrise. Find friends that like to go out on Monday.
Learn to edit and produce flawless work faster than you thought was fast. The motto in the online world is “send it live now, get it right later.” If you can send it live and get it right, someone might actually tell you you’re doing a great job. You’ll be amazed at how fast things get produced.
Morale in the world of journalism is low. Don’t expect box seats at the Yankees game for a corporate outing anytime soon, or a raise.
Don’t think because you’re an editor you won’t have to write. You may be called upon to write a couple grafs for a breaking story at any moment, and you’d better produce something that doesn’t embarrass you. Stick to the basics, but don’t think you won’t be writing.
Your work will appear instantly, so be sure it’s good. Instead of waiting for tomorrow’s paper, you will have your headlines and other work displayed prominently before you head home. Be sure to save any clips you want that moment, because things change very quickly and can disappear.
You will produce photo captions, write teasers, put together online packages and other items that involve short, succinct writing – but it’s the first thing anyone sees. You’re producing the full product now, not just writing headlines and designing, and your work is the grabber for the reader more than ever.
Learn basic HTML, it’s all you need.
Enjoy not having to wear anything that resembles a suit to work, and not having to fight traffic to get to and from work.
A CBS/Pravda/Farmer’s Almanac/“Avatar: The Last Airbender” poll released today indicates that yesterday never happened for seventy-two per cent of all respondents, but, if it had, thirty-two per cent more Independents believe now than just last May that Barack Obama and John McCain are both leading in a race now too lopsided to call. Analysts observed that the poll was taken in a light drizzle at 4 A.M. E.D.T., before the high-income segment is awake, prompting observers to analyze the results as skewing in favor of CBS.
McCain pollsters claimed that the same survey, conducted five minutes after a New Orleans Times-Picayune/Bravo/Popular Mechanics poll among women age twenty to twenty-one who are not men, found that ninety-seven per cent of respondents were too far away to be interviewed. The impact of current economic concerns on Obama’s popularity among bipolar white prison inmates with less than a kindergarten education was not measured, but the person responsible for designing the poll has been fired because prison inmates cannot vote.
Surprising many veteran pollsters as these results were tallied—given that it has yet to be conducted—was a Hartford Courant/CNN/Starbucks poll to be taken by qualified voters who, an earlier ABC/Sacramento Bee/Publishers Clearing House straw poll predicted, expect a win for either the Democrats or the Republicans come November, unless Congress acts. Recent polls show that more women than men believe otherwise, by a majority of at least three to one.
Yet, in answer to the question “Would you go before a firing squad to protect higher pollen counts?,” fewer than .03 per cent of those who identified themselves as likely McCain voters understood the question. By a plurality of four to one and counting, not counting those who did not, the Undecideds squared off in a donnybrook with the Don’t Knows, broken up by the Have No Opinions Worth Mentioning. The I Forgets stood on the sidelines.
In sharp contrast to last year’s similar polling question, conducted by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles for Indiana State University, only seventy-five per cent of respondents this year thought “with certainty” that they were being interviewed. The same seventy-five per cent also reported “moderate to severe” memory loss, a seeming rebuff to the well-financed pro-forgetfulness lobby.
Cheering the Obama camp, particularly after his Middle East visits, a Fox News/Toronto Star/Amway poll, released but not yet caught, charts a severe downturn in support for efforts not to not repeal the NAFTA treaty. But the influence on French public opinion of the marriage of President Nicolas Sarkozy and international hottie Carla Bruni will have to wait until tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the normally reliable Quinnipiac University poll was travelling and was unavailable for comment. ♦
Ombudsman Deborah Howell recently sent an all-newsroom e-mail asking Post staffers what they thought about copy editing and its worth at the paper. The following reply came from Metro copy editor Jeff Baron. Howell says, "It was such a good and succinct description of how copy editors see their work that I thought it was worth sharing with readers."
We all need editors. When we write, we might know what we mean to say, and we become blind to the looseness in our language and the gaps in our facts. Friends will ignore slips in e-mails, but newspaper readers should be able to expect a higher standard.
There's more involved than running a spell check. The copy editor needs to be a critical reader: Is the story missing necessary background or other information? Is it unfair? Is it libelous? Have crucial questions gone unasked? When the answer is yes, the copy editor is on the phone with the reporter or researching on the Internet to make things right, and to do it on deadline.
We have to be alert to ambiguities in the writing; if even five in a hundred readers are misled or baffled by the phrasing of a sentence, we have failed. Their lives are tough enough, and understanding a newspaper article shouldn't be hard work. We have to be the reader's advocates, straightening out twisted syntax (no matter that it's correct) when it does not serve the reader. We guard against cliches and jargon: When a police reporter mentions "an adult female," we turn her back into "a woman." We watch out for the badly strained figure of speech, that reference to "the inquiring eyes of Congress's investigative arm" that sounded right to the writer but would give a literal-minded reader nightmares.
We check the facts, to the extent we can. No obituary subject ever worked for the Institute for Defense Analysis -- it's the Institute for Defense Analyses.
And we are the defenders of proper grammar, usage, spelling and what publications call style: when to capitalize, when to use numerals or spell out the numbers, etc. Copy editors might be the only people who can discuss, cheerfully and seriously and on their own time, when to hyphenate a compound adjective. Normal people, I have found, deeply do not care.
Some mistakes jump out: I love finding the comically wrong homonyms, the core for corps, the pour for pore, the ordinance for ordnance. Some are more subtle: It's easy to miss errors in quotations because our training tells us to leave quotations alone, but if the reporter has left out or misinterpreted a word or two, it's the copy editor's job to notice and ask.
I consider my workday worthwhile if I've made one especially good catch or written one sterling headline.
Yes, let's not forget, we're the ones who write the headlines. The best of them draw the reader and capture the essence of the article. They can be lyrical or hard-hitting, as appropriate, but they have to make sense while fitting the space constraints laid down by our dear but slightly sadistic page designers. The headlines satisfy our love of word games, allowing us to play with the rhythm and the look of the language. We spend far more time editing the articles, but headlines give us more latitude, more of a chance to be creative. In sports terms, the editing is the dependable defense that wins games, but it's the best headlines that make the highlight reel.
We do this work, generally, at night, with no stopping for holidays or weekends. We do not have social lives. If we have families, we do not see them much. We get precious little personal glory: The work is strictly anonymous. And we don't get much in the way of money, either: A chart just released by our union shows that The Post's copy editors earn noticeably less than its reporters, photographers, page designers and graphic artists.
We have the satisfaction of helping turn rushed prose into a great newspaper. We have the respect of the superb reporters whose butts we sometimes save. And as The Post and other newspapers make do with fewer of us, putting fewer pairs of eyes on each column of type, I'm afraid readers will notice us by the mistakes we no longer keep out of print.
