Thoughts on COMM207 and Modern News Editing

While there may be disputes as to who said it first, Mary Poppins said it best. “What’s well begun is half done.” This statement works well, too, when applying it to course curriculum. More often than not, students will have less trouble with upper level courses once they have completed the appropriate prerequisites. In a sense, their work will be half done because they have already been exposed to the information they need in order to understand new material in higher level courses.

In my opinion, COMM207: Editing for Publication should be used as a prerequisite or introductory course to the communication program at Benedictine University at Springfield. This is because this course and its textbook, Modern News Editing, provide much needed background knowledge about the world of publication and different within it. While it focuses on print publications, it also looks at the growing area of online publications as well as the different jobs of editors, reporters, photographers, copy editors, and the like. Additionally, the book has chapters that deal with the law, ethics, and responsibility in journalism and publication. Therefore, students are given a taste of various areas that they may come into contact with when in a job in the field of communications.

This book and course may expose students to many of the different aspects or jobs within the communications realm, which could help them decide which one they prefer. The text does a nice job at highlighting what it is like working at news organizations of various sizes as well as what it might be like for a day in life of an editor or reporter. Another plus for this textbook is that it shifts from “what it’s like in the newsroom” to technical and practical information needed in publication and writing in general. And it is in the multitude of examples that this text stands out from the rest. Modern News Editing is a quick read that is supplemented with relevant examples. Authors Mark D. Ludwig and Gene Gilmore give examples of newspaper page layouts, online publication layouts, dummy sheets, different types and sizes of headlines, how to write straightforward versus clever headlines, proper punctuation for headlines, how to edit an article, and so much more. There are also tons of quick tip lists that are helpful in reference situations. Some fun lists include: Commonly Misspelled or Misused Words, Standard Copyediting and Proofreading Marks as well as Words and Phrases Often Mistakenly Used.

Honestly, I was very impressed with this book and its ability to layout material that could be very foreign to some in such a user friendly manner. It is definitely a book that students should be encouraged to keep after the class has ended. The text contains information that they will use later on in their studies within the communication program. It is also a simple, easy-to-read and easy-to-navigate book for times when students need a quick refresher on some editing point or whether they should use further or farther in their paper.

Another reason that this book was good for this class was that it came with a disc that contained many, many different practice exercises for editing articles, designing dummy pages, creating headlines, etc. And there weren’t just one or two exercises for different topics in the book, such as editing articles and writing headlines. There were tons of examples and activities for each topic that professors could choose from. These activities were really what helped pull the class together. This is because you can only read about something so much in a textbook before it becomes dull. With these exercises, students can read study the skills that the book talks about and then practice those same skills in a hands-on format. This really adds quality training to the course. Students can try out what they are reading about in the book, what actual people in the publication business do on a daily basis.

Finally, COMM207: Editing for Publication should be used an introductory course or prerequisite to the communication program because it provides basic information on a variety of communication related topics. Early introduction to these common principles and ideas can help students when they begin to work in higher level required courses, such as News Writing and Reporting, Advanced Journalism Writing, Print Media Layout and Design and Mass Media Law and Ethics.

For the two news writing courses, students will have already been exposed to how to work with stories before they begin to write their own. They will have been introduced to the very basics of news writing such as editing marks, news story structures, and general tips for writing and editing news stories. This background information can then help them when they begin to develop their own writing as they should be familiar with much of the information. With Print Media Layout and Design, students will have been somewhat exposed to what it is like to develop and work with different layout formats. Though the book does not cover layout in great detail, it does discuss tips for designing publication layouts and how a layout can reflect the message put out to an audience, which is an important point to know. Thirdly, if taken before many core communication classes, Editing for Publications will have given students some background knowledge for Mass Media Law and Ethics. Modern News Editing does a nice job at summarizing major points of publication in regards to both law and ethics. Therefore, students can have a basic understanding of how law and ethics relate to the field of communications. As law and ethics can often be tricky subjects to grasp, Mass Media Law and Ethics can build on information presented in the Editing for Publication’s textbook.

COMM207: Editing for Publication (especially in conjunction with its textbook, Modern News Editing) should come before many core classes in the communication program at Benedictine University at Springfield. This is because it presents, in a simplified, easy-to-understand way, some of the basic concepts and ideas, which students will inevitably come into contact with not only in their future coursework, but in the world of communications as well.

Modern News Editing: Chapter 8

Chapter nine, “Editors and Design,” of Modern News Editing was very informative mostly because of the numerous examples it had to accompany the information it presented. Also, this chapter was interesting to me because it talked about how technology has benefited the mass media and society. One thing that was interesting was how the Poynter Institute used eye tracking system to track where the eye moved across the page, what the eyes focused on, and how long the eyes focused on a certain portion of the page. A second exciting use of technology that has been beneficial to the mass media involve how they are able to instantly upload new material to the webpage once they write and file their stories.

Two main points that I took away from this chapter were 1) the news media may not tell us what to think, but they most definitely tell us what to think about, and 2) editors need to make the design of the pages work for the news of the day not the other way around.

It was just discussed in my Mass Communication class that the news media are the gatekeepers of information. They are the ones who decide what is worthy to be considered news of the day. The Modern News Editing book says a similar in stating that “another function of design is to tell the reader what editors consider the days most significant stories” (Ludwig and Gilmore, 2005, 127). So, the news media not only decide what is news, they then tell us which of that news is the most important and least important. With print media this is done through page placement. According to the text, “placement cues the reader. A story on page one rates high . . . But if it is three paragraphs long and deep inside a section, the reader realizes that the editor considers the item little more than a filler” (Ludwig and Gilmore, 2005, 131).

I think the previous quote is an example of why someone needs to understand the personality and values of the publication they choose to read. That way, if they agree with the publications values or ideologies, they can have more trust in the editors that they are not downplaying or overplaying one side of an issue over the other (even though newspapers shouldn’t do that anyway). Just having the same ideologies and values of the publication you read gives you more trust in the information. Still, you need to consider multiple sides of a story before forming an opinion. If you don’t, your opinions will not be well received because they are not back up by logical support and facts.

Then second main point of this chapter is that editors need to use the design of the page to enhance the stories. The text book states that “no matter how clever the makeup, the editors must be willing to scrap or revise it when ever news events demand” (Ludwig and Gilmore, 2005, 131). Similarly, the text stated that an editor should build a newspaper around a particular news package such as a feature story. Therefore, editors must not get too caught up on using a certain style of page design. He or she needs to make the page design work for the news and not force the news into a specific design that could be displeasing to readers.

In conclusion, I think the main thing to take away from this chapter is that editors need to understand that news comes first and that they have a responsibility to present the news in a way that is appealing to readers. Also, the news should be presented in a way that readers can understand and use to see which pieces are perhaps more important than others. This is important in today’s often hectic life style where people may have little time to get the news throughout the day.