Glossary of common journalistic terms

Ad – Abbreviation for “advertisement.”

Advertorial — Advertising copy designed to look like normal editorial copy.
Agate – small type used for sports statistics, stock quotations and to measure the depth of
advertisements.
Angle – How a reporter approaches a story, often a new way of approaching an old story.
Art – Photos or illustrations including maps, graphics, charts, etc.
Assignment – A reporter’s story for the day; also a reporter’s beat.
Attribution – The point in a story at which the source of information is identified.
Without attribution, stories lack credibility.
Beat – A reporter’s special area of responsibility. As in “the labour beat” or “the police
beat.”
Blue pencil — the copy editor’s traditional tool for marking passages to be eliminated
from copy. While the term is still used, the weapon of choice is nowadays a “delete” key.
Body type – The type in which most of the newspaper is set.
Broadsheet — A large newspaper format traditionally used by metropolitan dailies,
especially "serious" newspapers.
Bulldog – An early edition of a newspaper.
Bureau – A news organization office remote from the main newsroom, usually at a place
where something must be covered on a regular basis. I.e., the City Hall Bureau, the
Parliamentary Bureau, the St. Albert Bureau.
Bureau chief – The reporter or editor in charge of a bureau.
Byline – The line of type that says who wrote a newspaper or magazine story. (Usually
placed at the top of the story along with the placeline and the service line.)
Canadian Press – Canada’s national wire-service co-operative.
Canadian Press style – CP’s approved scheme of spelling, capitalization, abbreviation
and honorifics.
Caps – Capital letters.
Colour — The generous use of adjectives to describe people, places and situations.
Column – An opinion piece written by a columnist; a column of type.
Column inches – The conventional measurement of length for a newspaper story. An
editor usually wants about six column inches, not about 400 words. For some reason,
despite the widespread acceptance of the metric system in Canada, column centimetres
never seem to have caught on!
Convergence — A term used by media owners to describe pooling the work of multiple
news outlets, often working in different media. Convergence is often an excuse to get
more work out of reporters for the same money or less.
Copy – The text of a reporter’s story.
Copy editor – a journalist paid to fix errors of style and fact in copy, lay out pages and
write headlines. (Known in Britain and Australia as a sub-editor.)
Correspondent — A reporter who covers a region away from the news organization’s
normal geographic area of coverage. So, for example, a Calgary newspaper might have
an Ottawa correspondent.
Cutline – A photo caption.
Deadline – The last moment at which a story or page may be submitted for publication.
Defamation – A libel or slander, a critical or untrue statement that is actionable in civil
law.
Desker – A copy editor.
Desk, the – The collective group of copy editors on a newspaper. (See also the Rim.)
When used as “the national desk” or “the city desk,” a particular department of editorial
responsibility.
Ears – Small boxes at either side of the title plate on a section front, may contain a
forecast, circulation figures, or a small ad.
Editor – A journalist responsible for editing copy or supervising other journalists.
(Editor-in-chief, managing editor, wire editor, copy editor.)
Editorial Assistant – A newsroom assistant. Once referred to as copy runners or
copyboys.
Embedding — A recent term used to describe the placing of a journalist on a semi-
permanent basis in the company of a military unit. Embedding serves the purposes of
military officers by restricting the ability of journalists to report by restricting their
contacts to one side of a conflict.
Exclusive – A story that no one else has. Often called a scoop.
Fact — A piece of information that can be verified and tested.
‘Fairness and Balance’ — Another way of saying “Objectivity.” (See below.) However,
in the late 1990s, this phrase was used by right-wing critics of the press to mean slanted
or biased in favour of their views.
Feature – A “good read,” usually a softer story not necessarily pegged to a news event.
File – To submit one’s story to the Desk for editing and publication. As in, “File no later
than 8 p.m.”
Files – “With files by Joe Reporter” is a magazine term for crediting a minor contribution
to a story that has come into use in many newspapers. A better usage is “with a report
from….”
Filler – Stories, often inconsequential, that can be used any time to fill space.
Flush – A typesetter's term that describes the positioning of text even with the column on
the left or right side (flush left and flush right) without paragraph indents.
Focus Statement — A statement, usually a single sentence, that sums up the point of
your story. Also called a focus sentence. Useful in keeping a writer on track.
Folio – The page number and date line on a page.
Folio — A small magazine-size format roughly half the size of the tabloid format.
Font – A complete set of type in one size and style, originally the box in which lead type
was contained.
Freebie — A gift given to a journalist in hopes of influencing their coverage. The
practice is generally considered unethical.
Freelance Writer — someone who freelances, or writes without long-term contractual
commitments to a single employer. Journalism also has room for freelance
photographers, of course.
Gate-Keeping — An academic concept used to describe the ability of large news
organizations to determine what is considered to be newsworthy. The Internet has
undermined the ability of news organizations and businesses to do this.
Graph — A common newsroom abbreviation for paragraph.
Hard news – Events requiring coverage that are happening right now.
‘Hey Martha!’ story – A jocular expression for a story that really grabs a reader’s
attention. As in, “Hey Martha! Listen to this….”
Hoax — A false story that appears to be legitimate news, told so that the teller can realize
some sort of gain.
Hot type — Type set in old fashioned lead fonts on linotype machines.
Hype – A disparaging, slang term for overstating facts to make a story seem more
important than it really is.
Interview – A face-to-face or telephone conversation with a person quoted in a story. As
distinct from facts gleaned from a press release or other document.
Inverse pyramid – A way of describing the traditional news story structure, which is a
way of writing that puts the most important facts in the lead and less important facts in
subsequent paragraphs, to make it possible to cut the story at any point.
Jump – The continuation of a story on an inside page.
Junket — A free trip given to reporters for the purpose of influencing their coverage.
Justification – In typesetting, the practice of making both sides of a column line up in
straight lines.
Kerning – The space between letters. Kerning can be adjusted to make headlines fit.
Kill – To eliminate from copy.
Label – A headline with no verb, a mere caption.
Lead (also lede) – The first sentence or two in a news story. The “hook” that grabs your
readers’ attention.
Leak – Any unauthorized release of confidential information.
Legman – A reporter who gathers facts, but does not write.
Legs – A once-trendy term for a story that has the potential to be of interest over the long
term. As in, “this story has legs.”
Linotype — An obsolete typesetting system that places lead type on pages. Large, noisy
and expensive, these machines have been almost completely replaced by computer
typesetting.
Localizer – A local version of a national or international story. For example, do any
Edmonton hospitals have a SARS containment plan in place?
Makeup – The process of placing stories and advertisements on the news page.
Masthead – The section, often on the editorial page, that gives information about the
paper and its personnel.
Media – A popular collective noun for all newspapers and broadcasting operations. Some
say the media are, not the media is. Use with caution.
Mug shot – A head and shoulders photo.
News conference (also press conference, or newser) – An event called by a group or
individual to make their views known.
News hole — The amount of space in a newspaper available for news stories, as opposed
to advertising.
News peg – The timely event that can be used to justify a broader story or feature on a
topic.
News release (also press release or, nowadays, media release) – A document containing
material a group or individual wants to make public through the news media. Often a
self-serving publicity handout.
Newsroom – The room in a newspaper office or broadcasting station where reporters
work. (Journalists usually do not have private offices.)
Nightside – The nighttime operations of a newspaper.
Nut Graph — A paragraph that explains what a feature story is about. The nut graph is
usually not in the lead, but near the lead.
Obit – An obituary, that is, a journalistic accounting of the life of someone who has died.
Usually written soon after the death occurs or is announced. Not to be confused with
death notices, sometimes also called obituaries, which are placed in newspapers for a fee
by families or friends of the deceased.
Objectivity — The notion that a journalistic story should try to fairly present all sides of
a story with a degree of emotional detachment.
Op-Ed – The page opposite the editorial page, usually reserved for opinion pieces.
Opinion — Interpretation of facts, as opposed to the mere recitation of facts.
Traditionally, journalists have striven to keep opinion out of hard news. This is easier
said than done!
Newsworthiness — The quality of being worth reporting in a journalistic medium.
News Judgment — The ability of a journalist to determine what is newsworthy, and
what is not.
Nut graph – The paragraph in a news story that sums up the focus or main point of the
story.
Pagination — A computerized system that allows copy editors to make up entire pages
on a computer screen, writing headlines and editing stories as they work on the page.
Well-known pagination software systems in use in the newspaper and magazine
industries include QuarkXPress and Adobe PageMaker.
Photo opportunity – An event staged for the media at which reporters are not allowed to
ask questions.
Pica – A unit of measurement used by typographers, about one sixth of an inch. Not to be
confused with points, another unit of typographical measurement. Photographs are
usually measured in picas, type size in points. Go figure!
Placeline – The line of type that says where the events in a story took place.
Play – The positioning of a story or photo in the newspaper. As in “good play” or “bad
play.”
Press Gallery – The group of journalists assigned to cover Parliament or the provincial
legislatures. Press Gallery members’ privileges are granted by the Speaker.
Public Relations — The practice by companies and individuals of selling “stories” to the
media in ways that benefit their clients. Frequently referred to by its initials, PR.
Pundit — A supposed expert on a topic who is frequently quoted by the media. For
example, former military officers consulted by broadcast networks about wars in faraway
places.
Put to bed – To complete work on the pages of an edition. Also sometimes called
"closing" the edition.
Quotes – Statements in quotation marks directly attributed to a person mentioned in a
news story.
Reaction – The opportunity by interested parties or subjects of criticism to make their
views known in a news story.
Replate – To make a new version of a page after deadline to add new stories or correct
mistakes.
Reporter – A journalist who reports on events by writing stories or preparing broadcasts.
Rewrite – To write a story a second time to improve a story or cut it to length.
Rewrite person - The editor who takes facts over the phone and assembles a story from
them. This important job, sadly, has been made obsolete by computer technology to the
detriment of journalism.
Rim – Collectively, the copy editors of a newspaper. Also, the horseshoe-shaped desk at
which they used to sit.
Rumour — Information, often newsworthy, and often in widespread circulation, that
cannot be verified.
Second-day lead – A news lead that tries to advance a story a step farther than the first
accounts of an event.
Setting up — Writing an explanation that fully identifies every speaker and most
important characters in a news story. A quote that doesn’t fully identify a speaker has not
been properly set up.
Scoop – An exclusive story.
Scrum – An informal group of reporters seeking quotes in a public setting, after the
rugby formation of the same name.
Service line – The line of type that says what news service or newspaper produced the
story.
Sexy – Of interest to editors and, to a lesser extent, readers, as in, "that's a sexy story, but
it doesn't really have much substance."
Sidebar – A secondary or subsidiary story.
Slant — Bias in the way a story is reported.
Slot (or slotman or slotperson) – The person who assigns stories to editors for handling,
and decides on which pages they will be placed.
Slug – The one-word working title of a story, from the piece of lead type that once served
that purpose. Also the computer menu name for the story. Also serves as a noun, as in,
"What'd ya slug that story?"
Soft news – News that entertains and informs, but is not necessarily pegged to a
particular event.
Source — The source of a reporter’s information. This term is frequently used to
describe a person with whom information originated. Anonymous sources are those who
are quoted, but not identified. Also documents from which information is gleaned. Often
used to describe people who wish to provide information but who prefer to remain
anonymous.
Spike – To discard copy. As in, "I had to spike your story." From the days when editors
achieved this goal by placing a story on a spike.
Spin – A self-serving interpretation of events by public figures. The ability to present
opinion as if it were fact.
Streeter – A man-in-the-street interview.
Stick - Once two inches of hot-metal type, nowadays a column of type in a particular
story. As in, “there’s a typo in the second stick.”
Stone, the — The plate on which old-fashioned lead type was laid out in preparation for
printing; therefore the final point in the typesetting department at which changes could be
made to copy. Many older copy editors still talk about editing copy “on the stone,” even
though the stone is now a computer screen.
Style – A publication’s rules for spelling, abbreviation, capitalization and honorifics.
(The list of style points is often compiled in a “stylebook.”)
Subject — Not just the topic of a story, this term is often used by journalists to describe
the person who they are interviewing.
Tabloid — Often abbreviated to tab, a small newspaper format roughly half the size of
the traditional broadsheet newspaper.
Take – An archaic term for a short piece of paper on which news stories were once filed.
Some older editors still refer to stories as being “about three takes long.”
Take-out – A British term for a feature.
Torque – The same as hype.
30 – A traditional way of marking the end of a newspaper story. Largely obsolete in the
computer age in newspapers, but still widely used on news releases.
Typo – A typographical error.
Video News Release (VNR) — Video clips prepared in the style of broadcast news
reports for use by TV stations. The practice is considered more potentially misleading
and hence more questionable than traditional print news releases.
Web — Not just the World Wide Web, but the name of a variety of press, the Web offset
press, used by many newspapers.
Wire service – An organization, often a co-operative of news companies, that provides
local news for use elsewhere and news from far away for use locally.
Wire service style – The “inverse pyramid” style of news writing favoured by wire
services.