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Improving Your Publication

Improving Your Publication. 10 Tips for going from good to great Mr. Mica Mulloy/Brophy College Prep Download from roundup.brophyprep.org Look in the “About>Staff Resources” section. About Me/THE ROUNDUP.

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Improving Your Publication

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  1. Improving Your Publication 10 Tips for going from good to great Mr. Mica Mulloy/Brophy College Prep Download from roundup.brophyprep.orgLook in the “About>Staff Resources” section

  2. About Me/THE ROUNDUP • Advisor for The Roundup for 5 years. Teach Journalism and Photography. Former reporter and photographer in Arizona. NAU Journalism grad. Editor of The Lumberjack. • 2011 AIPA 1st Place for General Excellence • 2011 ANA “Best High School Newspaper” • Multiple NSPA Story/Design of the Year awards • 150 individual state and national honors in last 5 years • HUMILITY DISCLOSURE: • We are not perfect. Not by a long shot. My advice is just advice. • Apply it to your publication as you see fit. • Download from roundup.brophyprep.orgLook in the “About>Staff Resources” section

  3. Local, Local, Local • Identify your community. Write for them. (Hint: It’s students) • Avoid national/state/city stories unless you look only at how it directly impacts students. • News and Sports: All “local” • Opinions and Entertainment: As local as you can get. Give priority to local opinions/stories. Anything not local should directly impact students. • Write about what’s happening in your community, don’t rehash 6-week old news everyone already knows about or doesn’t care about.

  4. Local, Local, LocalFor example Don’t Do Write about a student or grad who went to Olympic trials. Write about students who organized an SB1070 protest. Better: A student whose family is here illegally and is afraid. Write a profile about a student who spent months volunteering for a campaign • Write a general story about the Summer Olympics • Write an overview of the Supreme Court SB1070 decision • Write a recap of presidential and/or state elections If you don’t have a local thread, look harder or don’t run the story

  5. online presence is key • Develop and maintain an active online presence. If you aren’t online, get there. Today. No excuses. • Hosting a website • Wordpress.com/.org, Tumblr, my.hsj.org • Great article from JEA, especially for reticent principals • Be proactive: Write an online commenting policy • Create a culture where online is important, not just a dumping ground for what didn’t fit in the print edition. • Update regularly. Don’t just overload the site once a month and let it sit. • At least 2 to 3 times/week if possible

  6. online presence is keyGet Social with your media • Students are on social media. If your publication isn’t, you’re out of the loop. • Publication Facebook and Twitter accounts are musts • Post links to stories • Deliver quick news • Share other news • Solicit reader input/feedback • Keep your finger on the school’s pulse • www.facebook.com/thebrophyroundup • www.twitter.com/brophysports • Readers look for news much less than they ever did. News has to come to them.

  7. Use rolling deadlines • Avoid the inevitable end-of-the-month rush/overload and break your deadlines up. • The Roundup uses two writing deadlines for each monthly cycle. • Short articles, columns, past events, timely reviews usually due within 1 week. • Longer news articles, in-depth features, extensive interviews, etc usually due within 2 weeks. • Helps keep staff on task • Allows editors to devote more attention to revisions • Keeps top editors and your adviser a little more sane

  8. Master the Fundamentals • You have to do the basics well if you want to continue to get better. Period. • Write strong, concise, active ledes and heds • Avoid 1st Person in News and Sports with very rare exceptions. • Do not editorialize in anything but opinion pieces. • Don’t steal photos. • Attribution does not equal permission • Google Images = stealing • Use the AP Style Guide • Write/Use a staff manual.

  9. Run regular Enterprise packages • Anchor each edition with an enterprise package—an in-depth, extensive and/or investigative collection of articles and art. • Could be topical, issue-oriented or feature-based • Span sections whenever possible

  10. Cover sports actively • Your printed edition likely doesn’t come out nearly as frequently as your school teams compete. Don’t fill your pages with old recaps no one cares about anymore. • DO write regular gamers, but post them online asap. • Post scores on Twitter/Facebook in game or postgame. • Try an aggregate of the last month’s worth of games in the printed edition instead of full articles. • Features and in-depth articles are more evergreen. • Player profiles, coach profiles, quirky traditions, interesting superstitions, devoted fans, etc.

  11. Clean Layout is vital • How you layout pages will determine how people view and judge your content. Keep layout clean, professional and organized. • Design top to bottom • Dominant art on each page. Most important stories on top. • Use white space. Consider internal borders. • 1 pica between all elements • Keep columns less than 2 inches wide. • Keep grafs 1 or 2 sentences max • Never cut off text with art. • Use the “Dollar Bill” rule • If you can put a dollar bill on the page and it only touches body text, your page is too gray. Add art elements.

  12. Be consistent with fonts • Font choice is extremely important when it comes to design and legibility. Pick a handful of fonts for your publication and use them consistently and exclusively. • You’ll need fonts for: • Main heds& Regular heds • Sub heds • Body text • Bylines • Cutlines • Graphics/Pull quotes • Serif font for body text. Sans Serif for important info • Be consistent with size. • Be really careful with color/shadows/bevels/etc.

  13. Arial Black Perpetua Palatino Linotype Arial Narrow Tahoma

  14. Use Great art • Do whatever you can to fill your publication with great art. Photos, Illustrations,Infographics, Pull quotes, Etc. • Great art makes your publication look good. • Great art creates entry points to your articles. • Great art adds to the story/tells a story on its own.

  15. Use Great arTPhoto guidelines • NSPA Best of Photography 2010 • Fill the frame. Use the Rule of Thirds. • Take candid photos. Never stage news/sports photos. • Be creative with portraits. Don’t run a “mug” shot as a portrait. • Run great photos BIG • Running a lousy photo bigger doesn’t make it better! • Give your photogs credit • Don’t run cutlines on top of photos.

  16. Strive for Excellence • Excellence breeds excellence. Work towards it in all you do. • Create a culture of excellence by leading by example and only accepting your best work.

  17. Strive for ExcellenceAlways look for examples • No publication is perfect. Always seek as many outside examples as you can find. • If you are looking with an open mind there will always be something you can take from another publication. • Look for story ideas, design ideas, photo ideas, etc. • If you see something you like, steal it! • Participate in newspaper exchanges. • Email your paper’s address to roundup@brophybroncos.org and we’ll mail you our editions if you promise to send your paper back. • IMPORTANT: Winning an award is not a sign that you have arrived and you are done. An award recognizes you were on the right path at that moment in time. Keep going!

  18. Strive for ExcellenceResources • my.hsj.org • NSPA’s “The Wheel” • Student Press Law Center • Poynter’s News University

  19. Contact • Mr. Mica Mulloy/Brophy College Preparatory • mmulloy@brophyprep.org • http://roundup.brophyprep.org • Twitter: @BCPJournalism • Veteran Voice quotes/images from NSPA • Download from roundup.brophyprep.orgLook in the “About>Staff Resources” section

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