Editing
The Roar Cycle
Let me take you along throughout an issue.
Timeline
Before any meetings or article assigning happens, senior staff plans the calendar of the volume about a week after the end of the previous one. On it, we include general activities, reporter deadlines, section editor deadlines, photo/graphics deadlines, and senior staff deadlines and meeting dates, color coded to indicate who things are relevant for. (In this timeline, you also see when we have deadlines for grad phone calls!)
We send out this timeline to everyone in the publication (our email list), let them look at it, and then move onto our critique and brainstorming meeting.
Article ideas for sports, the section I used to oversee. I usually left little comments on their docs to give suggestions in the future or walk them through my thinking.
Critique and Article Brainstorm
Our critique is a part of the Roar cycle that we value a lot, because it gives members of the Roar community an opportunity to voice their qualms (or what they like) with the paper, and helps us learn more about what people want to be seeing from us, and helps us see a perspective that we might have overlooked.
Usually in the same meeting, we split reporters into groups by section, where section editors get to know them and make a list of ideas that they think would make good articles. Within the next few days, section editors are due for a comprehensive list of article ideas, which we on senior staff use to designate and organize articles.
Article assigning
From there, we on senior staff go through article ideas and assign articles to sections, providing descriptions and lengths for each. We have a set number of pages for each section, so we have to work with what we have.
From there, we have an article assigning meeting where articles are distributed first-come-first serve. They'll add their name to the tracker, and then section editors get in contact with them to begin the drafting and outlining process.
Training resources
During the start of the school year, when we get our new crop of freshmen to join, and around this point in the process, we host a lot of training sessions where new reporters can come in and learn more about the writing process, editing process, and just about Roar in general. We stress that its really important for reporters to go, because those who do definitely have an easier time during the editing process.
Absolutely no one enjoyed this, but it had to be done.
Other available "Roar-general" resources for reporters and editors
Interviewing
In my opinion, the interview is the most important part of any article process. When we got our reporters, we first would go over with them any questions they may have about the topic and clarify anything. If they are seasoned and know what they're doing, we could kind of chill and just let them do their own thing. But if they were new, the entire process is incredibly hands on.
As a first time news editor, I made this document for my reporter to teach her what kind of perspectives she should be getting. My main schtick when I was in news was that I was really harsh about the diversity of the interviews, and I wouldn't accept articles that didn't a) meet the requirement of 6 interviewees per article and b) provide both perspectives, especially for news. Obviously, I expressed this sentiment very early on to new reporters, and if I continued to work with them later on, many of them informed me that in being quite strict as an editor, I led them to strive for greater excellence later on, and that after having me, the writing process became quite easy.
I hope thats a good thing.
A document I made for the same reporter to help guide her through asking questions during the interview.
Organization
Along with that, I required reporters (especially new ones) to keep their work organized and updated so that I could monitor them. At the start of each issue, I would probably make about a gazillion folders and starter interview trackers and writing trackers for each reporter that I had. None of them liked it and thought I had a stick up my butt, but I don't really care; they got their articles in on time because of it.
One time when I was still a freshman, I was overseeing this junior who didn't really want to work with me and never updated his trackers. He was incredibly behind on all of his deadlines, so I kicked him off the article and wrote it myself.
I warned you, Sawyer.
Outlining and drafting
There are a million ways to outline and draft, but what I recommend for new reporters is this:
Go through all your transcripts and pick out quotes that you believe are the most promising
Organize them based on theme/ideas, and have them flow into one another
WHEN you have multiple POVs (because YOU WILL), bounce back and forth between opinions, but all within the same idea
If you want to take it a step further, jot down a basic idea for you lead-in sentence
That is how I learned how to do it when I first wrote an article. Over time, the outlining process gets a lot more bareboned, most of the time I don't even use one anymore, but its really helpful for new reporters to understand the writing process and also for editors to keep tabs and teach.
Outline information sheet
Reporter's outline (that I guided her through and left comments on)
DRAFT!
And now put it all together!
The biggest mistake that almost all of my new reporters have made is that they write the article in an essay format, with really large paragraphs. This one in particular. I mean, I don't blame them, it's how we were taught to write.
From here, section editors begin the editing. I won't lie, it's kind of a grueling process, for both the editor and the reporter. The standard that senior staff holds section editors to is very high, and section editors are the first of approximately 7 eyes that it will go through before it hits print.
This is essentially the checklist that all editors check for as we are editing. Really advanced reporters go through this list themselves, which is always super helpful
We on Roar follow AP Style really rigidly. Along with that, one of the things that make us really distinct is that we never use words such as "added" or "followed" or even "says". We pretty much exclusively only use "said" when introducing someone's quote, as to avoid editorialization. While working in news, this is a huge aspect of our identity as a section, and we were incredibly strict about it. I had a couple reporters tell me that they hated it and kept submitting articles to me using editorializing language. I guess out of spite?
This AP style cheat sheat is very good, but for some reason I always used to use Purdue's website instead.
Microsoft Word - WJEA AP Style 'Cheat Sheet'.docx.pdfProof system
The proof system, although tricky to understand at first, is genius in the eyes of a senior staff editor. Basically, it goes through text edits by all the editors in the section, and then it is ready for senior staff review. From there, the member of senior staff that oversees that particular section (in my case, sports and centerfold), makes the first round of text edits and then sends it back to the editor in charge of the article to go over those edits with reporters.
After that, in what we call "Proof 1" is after the editor/reporters put in text edits and then the editor sends in their first draft of what their page will look like. The next senior staff member will then look at text and then make page edits, and then send it back. This process repeats 3 or 4 times (depending how many senior staff members there are), and then it goes to Ms. Chapman, our advisor, who makes final suggestions. After THOSE are put in, section editors email the PDF file and their InDesign file for their page to the senior staff email.
WHEW.
A little tricky, but really good for senior staff. However, there is a very large flaw that we were still trying to figure out even as I was leaving: sometimes, Sr. Staff will disagree on certain things, and that usually confuses the editor/reporter. It has sometimes caused some beef and uncertainty within staff, but its usually not bad. Yet, we were still hoping to find a way to fix it.
Its actually a regret of mine that we didn't figure it out. I hope that in future publications, I'll get to see different processes and understand which one makes the most sense and is the most efficient for me.
Not like I can choose.
Hahah...
my edits are in green
This article was sent to me for text edits last issue, and its a pretty extreme side of our editing process. Basically, this article barely met any of the criteria of multiple perspectives, non-editorialization, AP Style, flow, etc., and I show this example, not to show that we want to take over articles, but to show that we hold each and every single article to a very high standard, and if it doesn't meet the standard, we don't publish it, and we make a lot of edits because we want everything to get published.
However, and you can't tell with this document because all the comments have been resolved, something that we do that is really important is that we explain all of our edits and leave suggestions that both editors and reporters can use in the future.
Again, editorialization is my big thing. I acknowledged, though, that this writer didn't have much time left and wouldn't be able to get another interview, and also this was her first issue as a news editor, so I just wanted her to make sure that she knew what to do in the future, which she did!
I felt for this reporter a lot, especially because I also incorporate a lot of prosaic and mellifluous diction in my other writing. However, knowing your audience is incredibly important as a journalist. Journalism is especially for-the-reader, and its not like if you pick up a Thomas Pynchon book and think, "Yeah, I'm not going to understand this." Making ideas digestable is paramount, and if you can do that in a poetic way, go off queen.
Its also really important to let the editors know when they've done a great job. I remember the first time I was told that my writing, "has become really readable," by one of my former EICs Eva Shimkus. I never forgot about that, and really value her positive feedback.
"Proofs explained" is among the only Roar info-docs that I actually referred to on a very regular basis. I love this document, especially because I'm not great with technology and creative programs, so I needed a lot of help remembering how to export PDF and Indd files. Oops!
This document outlines the text and page requirements that section editors are expected to uphold, which senior staff checks for.
Page Edit samples
The reason why the proof system is somewhat flawed is because I actually made an error in my page edits for this proof. I made the edit that the editor needs to use a drop cap for the first letters of both articles, but actually, the Roar style is that the first letter of a half page article doesn't have a drop cap. She was probably so confused.
The valentines day article did need a drop cap, though.
Paste up
During the proof period, we hold "paste up" as designated times for editors to come in and get work done. It ranges from about 1.5-2 weeks long, and there is always a few, if not all members of Senior Staff present in order to give feedback and help. Its basically office hours but with cookies (sometimes) and good music (SOMETIMES), and it has been a quintessential part of Roar culture.
(If people are behind on the deadlines, they are required to be there.)
Send up
Finally, the last few days before we have to send to the printers. (Almost) All of the pages are sent in, and we are primed and ready to combine all of the pages and send-the-heck-up.
It takes about 4 consecutive days
Based on which section we oversee, we do final read-throughs of all the articles, and then check each element of the page design to make sure its spot on. Along with that, sometimes section editors take parts of different pages, so we have to put them all together onto one page, which usually takes a lot of changing to achieve.
Along with that, during send-up, we typically are still working on the editorial and laying cover, back page, fun-page, and, honestly, a lot of the times, Centerfold, because this volume we had a team that didn't work very well, so we had to pull a lot of their weight just to get an article out. Luckily, since I used to work on fold and used to lay our pages, I am able to do it.
it is so exhausting, but so worth it...
because...
PAPER DAY
BOOM.
Friday mornings at 8:30. School. Newspapers. Throw em on the floor. Stack them on the stairs. WE. DON'T. CARE. JUST GET EM OUT.
Distribution is a glorious day, where we spend the first 20 minutes of the session seeing the paper in print, staining our fingers with newspaper ink, and then frantically realizing class starts in 10 minutes, and scrambling to scatter the papers around the school and hand them out to passerbys.
Thank you for coming along this journey! You are now officially a member of The Lion's Roar.
(New issue starts next week.)