February, 2010
Tips for making ethical decisions
A story in today’s New York Times under the headline, “Inquiry Poses a Quandary for Cuomo,” covers many aspects of making an ethical decision. The news in this story is that New York Gov. David Paterson has asked Attorney General Andrew Cuomo “to look into allegations that he or others in his administration had interfered [...]
Which story is the lead? Look inward
Every semester in my editing class, students participate in an exercise in which they must rank 10 stories in order of importance to their audience. Individually, the students rank the stories and write a brief explanation about their choice for the lead story. Then, the students gather in groups of two and three to share [...]
Skeptical editing, Part 2: Conclusion
In yesterday’s blog post, we mentioned how students in my advanced editing course followed the process of skeptical editing as they read a New York Times story published Feb. 7, under the headline, “Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord.” We invited you to read the story and follow the same process — ask questions about [...]
Skeptical editing: more than curiosity
In the advanced editing course that I teach at the Newhouse School, students read a story yesterday that was published in The New York Times on Feb. 7 under the headline, “Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord.” The song? “My Way.” Students were instructed to follow the skeptical editing method as they read the story. [...]
Make writing tight, logical: Video
Sometimes we read something and it stops us — for the wrong reason. It doesn’t make sense. We list some of these “favorites” in our book, including such things as “an almost infinite list.” But something can’t be “almost infinite.” Obvious as that is, we’ve seen this one quite a few times over the years. [...]
Headlines for the Web must be specific
In my editing class yesterday, the topic was “headlines and search engine optimization.” Guest Stephen Masiclat, a faculty member at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, led the discussion. Headline writing is an art for print alone. But when online search engines are taken into consideration, headline writing also becomes a science. Why? With [...]
