Newspaper Articles

Newspaper Articles include News Articles, Features, Editorials, Columns and Opinions. 

For instance, The Tribune, India has the Op-Ed Section that includes Editorials, Middle and Articles.

News Articles: These are impersonal, objective, informative and mainly categorized as ‘hard’ news and ‘soft’ news based on immediacy and significance of the event or incident. News that creates concern falls under the former category. In the latter, human interest surpasses the immediate impact.

News Articles are written in inverted pyramid style with most important facts written first. The Lead includes 5Ws and 1 H: from who, what, when, where, why to how of the news are covered in the first paragraph. The next paragraph reinforces the lead. All the other paragraphs add detail. The last paragraph is usually open-ended hinting at further developments.

So, ‘hard news’ may be about militant attack at Uri headquarters of the army in J& K on September 18, 2016, while ‘soft news’ would be an item like the news about the German army training Eagles to intercept drones in revival of old practice of falconry, again published in the same week , same month in 2016.

Good news is distinguished for accuracy, balance, fairness- these help build credibility. Also important are brevity, clarity and readability as these help sustain interest. Human interest is self-explanatory. Above all, sharp observation makes the news distinctive as it adds details and may even help investigation or evoke the right questions.

But though ‘treatment’ of the content should be excellent to produce a well-crafted news story, the identification of newsworthy subject is of still greater importance.

The news value is suggested by possession of: Timeliness, Proximity, Prominence, Conflict, Future Impact or Consequence, Human Interest and Unusualness/Bizarre or Shock value.

Depending upon the importance, the news will be placed on the first page or subsequent pages.

News reporting may be Investigative, Interpretive, Event Reporting, Political Reporting, Parliamentary, Reporting, Legal Reporting, Business Reporting, Science & Technology Reporting, Sports Reporting and Development reporting.

Features: Features have a broad rubric. They are based on people, places and situations but go beyond.They are subjective and pivoted on the author’s perspective of things. They are descriptive but may also be quirky.

These include News Features and Timeless Features.

News Features are topical and express a take or opinion on latest news. They are timely and as they are connected to the ‘news peg’ they are based on, they are temporal-limited and governed by time.

Timeless Features have a long shelf life- they remain fresh perennially and in fact, may remain evergreen due to sustained human interest.

Editorials: These express the opinion of the newspaper. They are usually unsigned and views expressed in the editorial section are generally those to which the media group subscribes. In HT often editorials furnish news analysis while the editorial space is taken by an article by a prominent journalist with a disclaimer.

Opinions: Opinions, usually, expressed by experts in a particular field. These are informed observations of experts and may guide the readers’ opinion.

Middle: These relate anecdotes and episodes. The author shares his observations on life, language, life-style through personal anecdotes and observations. These are written by lay persons and are distinguished by quirky writing style, wit or humour.

Columns: Columns are published regularly or periodically. The reader may be hooked on to the outlook or writing style of a particular columnist or feature writer whose features regularly appear in a particular newspaper having a space dedicated to it. There is Poonam Saxena writing for Brunch magazine writing on TV serials and soaps.Rajiv Makhani writes ‘Technilicious’, again a popular column on gadgets. But the frontrunners are perhaps the likes of Karan Thapar whose articles and columns are pegged on imperial legacy and contrast Indian behavior with the British sense of propriety. Vir sanghvi writes ‘Rude Food’ for ‘Brunch’, a Hindustan Times magazine supplement.

References:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english/creativewriting/commissionsrev6.shtml

Think it over:

According to BBC, most writing is pivoted on genre, audience, purpose and style (GAPS).

Editorial Writing

Editorial Writing

An editorial is a newspaper article having immediate relevance and pertaining to a current issue.

For instance, though, sharing of Cauvery water has always been a bone of contention with the two states, the issue becomes topical due to latest developments. Violence followed the September 2016 judgment pronounced by Supreme Court asking Karnataka to release water to Tamil Nadu as water crisis deepens in the two states. The Hindu acclaimed for its timely editorials immediately published an article on the Cauvery water dispute with the title ‘Sharing without Caring’ observing that the dispute was less about ‘water and irrigation and more about linguistic chauvinism and regional identity’(September14, 2016).

Similarly, another editorial published by The Hindu ‘Sapping India’s Vitality’ lamented the failure of public health system in curbing vector-borne viral diseases as Chickengunya and Dengue rage over Northern India. 

Editorials analyze and comment upon local, national and international news of significance. ‘Syrian Crisis’ rules the year and it will be a mere desperate prayer to wish the Middle east revolution would turn out to be unreal nightmare not a reality with future.

Once again, under the rubric of September13, 2016 headline ‘They are the world…’ The Hindu in a woeful parody of a hopeful song of yore draws attention to the grim picture of migrant children based on UNICEF reports underlining the shocking figure of more than 50 million displaced children.

A range of subjects from immigration norms, war and violence to constitutional reforms may be considered for editorial writing. Editorials like those by Philip P. Kerby of Los Angeles Times in 1976 have upheld freedom of expression and canvassed for the ‘right to know’ by questioning the need for ‘government secrecy’ and ‘judicial censorship’. Despite, adverse political pressure, editorials have been conscience-keepers of those in power. In an interesting editorial discussing Indian judicial system under the heading ‘From dissent to disapproval,’ the newspaper, The Hindu maintains that history ‘shows that principled dissent often leads to reform’. It expresses adulation for Justice J. Chelameswar who ‘has acted on his famous dissent. After disagreeing with the majority on a Constitution Bench that struck down the law enacted to establish a National Judicial Appointments Commission, the judge, who is part of the five-member Supreme Court collegium, has opted to keep out of its proceedings’(September5, 2016).

It is important to refer to Pulitzer Prize that is given in honour of excellence in journalism since 1917. Editorials that are remarkable in spirit and word are awarded. The parameters suggest the importance of hinging strong writing skills on rationality and morality to lead public opinion; awards go to‘ distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in what the writer conceives to be the right direction, using any available journalistic tool’.According to Wikipedia, an ‘editorial, leading article (US) or leader (UK), is an opinion piece written by the senior editorial staff or publisher of a newspaper, magazine, or any other written document. Editorials may be supposed to reflect the opinion of the periodical ’.

The editorial articulates the viewpoint or the official position held by a newspaper regarding an issue of public importance. It is not an individual expert’s view point on an issue but the position taken on local, national or international matters by the publication. The attitude when publishing an editorial is not of ‘disclaimer’ but of acceptance, acknowledgement and responsibility. Editorials are required to be lucid, analytical, well crafted, provocative and persuasive.

These are rich in information, deeply researched (2005) and deal with issues comprehensively. They often address ‘complex state issues’ (2004), explore ‘dilemmas’ (2002) .The tone may vary from forceful or dispassionate to ‘down-to-earth’ to ‘admonishing’ (2009) or ‘incisive ‘(2004)when criticism is justified but also ‘compassionate and compelling’ (2007) where public opinion needs to be guided.

These excel at analysis and can assess consequences of current developments and gauge their future impact. Well-researched editorials can help fix responsibilities and resolve crisis- they have the power to enlighten people and create greater awareness as information reaches the public in a credible and comprehensive manner.

However, editorials appeal not out of prejudice but equipoise. For instance, David Moats of Rutland (VT) Herald won recognition for his ‘even-handed and influential series of editorials’ commenting on a certain controversial and divisive issue(2001).They can even mitigate disaster or civil crisis and have the effect of healing as editorials by John Strohmeyer of Bethlehem (PA) Globe-Times that aimed at ‘reducing racial tensions in Bethlehem’ in 1972.

Editorials have the power to run campaigns. Noteworthy are the editorials by John C. Bersia of The Orlando Sentinel in 2000 that campaigned against ‘predatory lending practices in the state, which prompted changes in local lending regulations’. Editorials were found effective in campaigns that ranged from rescuing heritage buildings (1999) to helping government restructure the education system. They may prompt reforms and empower the powerless as the editorials dealing with social welfare systems centred on children and women. While governments and corporate are interested in ‘development’; editorials may draw attention to the contemporary threat from ‘overdevelopment’.

They may demonstrate the grit to go against- the- grain or satirize establishment even when the majority view is different. Joseph Rago of The Wall Street Journal was commended for his well-written editorials that questioned health reforms advocated by the US president Obama.

They may be ‘relentless’ and unsparing in condemnation of social disparities and expose the real issues with a missionary zeal. Sensitive editorials may help sustain sympathy for a long-standing but neglected cause or even be capable of evoking empathy when issues become hackneyed. Editorials are praised for bringing fresh perspectives on much-lamented issues. Cornelia Grumman of Chicago Tribune won the 2003 Pulitzer for ‘her powerful, freshly challenging editorials on reform of the death penalty’.

A well-written editorial is distinguished for ‘engaging readers and driving home the link between necessary solutions and their impact on everyday lives’ (Pulitzer Prize, 2014).They must be able to explain urgent but complex issues in simple terms. Great editorials have the power to run campaigns and cause governments to reconsider their decisions and revise their policies as 2013 award-winning editorial by Tim Nickens and Daniel Ruth of Tampa Bay Times did. Some editorials have been acknowledged to have stirred the governments into action as 2005 editorial that made government take stalk of a flooded valley in California. The writers were praised for their ‘diligent campaign that helped reverse a decision to end fluoridation of the water supply for the 700,000 residents of the newspaper's home county’.

As stated, the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing was won by John Hackworth and Brian Gleason of Sun Newspapers, Charlotte Harbor ‘For fierce, indignant editorials that demanded truth and change after the deadly assault of an inmate by corrections officers’. The list of editorials includes topics dealing with ‘income inequality’ (2015); ‘rising pension costs’ (2014); to those dealing with inability of governments to curb child abuse.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editorial

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/from-dissent-to-disapproval/article9072595.ece

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-on-cauvery-issue-and-the-dispute/article9104515.ece

http://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/214

Types of Editing

With advent of Desktop publishing, the process of editing became revolutionized. The possibility of editing compositions on-screen has made the task of professionals both easy and cheap.

It is asserted by media gurus that post-digitization, wordsmiths and grammarians are required but those who know Quark have the edge in crisis.
Moreover, a regular copy editor today is expected to be simultaneously producing an SEO(Search Engine Optimization), a copy not just suitable for web but targeted most frequently in search terms and making the text visible during browsing quests of prospective readers.

Based on current trends, editing has evolved into the following types:

Developmental Editing

When qualitative editing is required at the manuscript level for a Work in Progress(WIP) or when the manuscript is complete. It deals with story-telling techniques and writing skills and sometimes with the book design including placement of chapters.

It may require re-writing the story or re-working the plot.

Substantive Editing/Content Editing

Even a promising manuscript requires editing. The narrative may be engaging, the writing skills may be enviable and yet editing may be required for consistency and coherence. It may be desirable in keeping with norms and conventions of storytelling and even where there are deviations to create a cogent impression.

Some characters may need to appear more flesh and blood, certain loose-ends may require tying up, some images may be unintentionally left incomplete and may need finishing touches.

The intention of the author shall be executed by the editor in substantive editing.

Stylistic Editing/Line editing

This editing is executed for paragraphs and sentences.The aesthetic impression is consolidated by balancing narrative with dialogue or focalization with performative elements.Simply, what is told and what is shown and how...

Copy editing

Not to confuse with stylistic editing or line editing, it is copy editing that turns out a manuscript that conforms to the style sheets as per the convention.

It aims at refining the syntax and removing inconsistencies that may be factual, chronological  or grammatical.

Proofreading

It double-checks the manuscript and eliminates any errors and inconsistencies especially in spellings, punctuation and grammars left over by the copy editor.




For clear and better information on the subject:
http://www.romancerefined.com/types-of-editing.html

Samvad: Photography Competition

http://www.haryanasamvad.gov.in/store/tenders/Photography_Competition_english.pdfhttp://www.haryanasamvad.gov.in/store/tenders/Photography_Competition_english.pdf

Globe- trotter Arrives at the Universe-city! YMCAUST August 17, 2016

Globe- trotter Arrives at the Universe-city!

YMCAUST August 17, 2016

Finally, the university had a globe-trotter arriving here. YMCAUST was the destination for Dr Deepti Singh Gupta, travel writer and photographer when she had a surfeit of ideas on ‘Travel Trends and Careers’ to share with aspiring journalists and amateur photographers. Deepti Singh Gupta has just held an exhibition of her travel photographs at the India Habitat Centre. Her work has found mention in national dailies like Deccan Herald and Pioneer.

The students were kept mesmerized by the spectacular landscape photography, impressive silhouettes and ethereal profile in her artwork.  The whole panorama of contemporary media practices was laid out for the media aspirants to explore and understand. Her talk probed a range of subjects from marketing strategies using microblogging and new media to travel writing ‘mantras’ and pitfalls.

Deepti Singh’s write- ups as well as travel photographs have featured in celebrated magazines like Lonely Planet magazine and site, National Geographic and National Geographic Traveller, Economic Times ‘Travel’ and Times of India travel site –‘Happy Trips’ while she has  also curated photo exhibitions of her travel images under the name 'Postcards From Paradise'. This freelance photographer set up a travel blog in 2013 and remains an avid blogger documenting and tweeting her travel tales @GlobalPitara.

The prestigious Art Nouveau Gallery held an online exhibition of her selected artwork in December 2015. Currently her artwork can be accessed at the internationally acclaimed Saatchi Art. She has been invited to deliver Travel Talk at the very popular Oxford Bookstore.

An environmentalist by education with a doctorate in Botany, but a traveller in spirit and soul, she was interviewed by Hindustan Times and also wrote for HT City lately.

She has served as President of a Rotary Club for two consecutive years and remains associated with social concerns of the town.

Dr Rajkumar, Dean & Chairperson, Humanities & Sciences was present on the occasion. 

For Pictures Visit:

http://www.globalpitara.in/

http://intelligenttravel.nationalgeographic.com/tag/global-pitara/

catchyheadlinesfor news features and stories

How Lowering Crime Could Contribute to Global Warming

The Particle That Wasn’t(Antithesis)

Another Inconvenient Truth: It’s Hard to Agree How to Fight Climate Change

Piles of Dirty Secrets Behind a Model ‘Clean Coal’ Project (Contrast)

from The New York Times

Some Features as Models: Science Journalism areas

Those Poststorm Spectacular Sunsets, Explained

By C. CLAIBORNE RAYAUG. 8, 2016

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CreditVictoria Roberts

Q. Why does a spectacular sunset so often follow a late-afternoon thunderstorm?

A. Some of the important factors in a photo-worthy red-orange sunset after a storm include timing, cloud patterns, the scattering of sunlight, and air quality in the lower atmosphere, according to the Storm Prediction Center of the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Most thunderstorms occur in the late afternoon or the evening, close to sunset, when radiant heating and atmospheric instability have reached their peaks. In the aftermath of such a storm, midlevel and high clouds may be left behind, especially cirrus and altocumulus clouds that are ideal as a canvas for painting by the sun’s last rays.

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Water-filled clouds in the lower atmosphere will have been depleted by the storm.

Those last rays are mostly red or orange because the longer path that light takes through the atmosphere as the sun’s angle becomes ever lower means that the wavelengths of other colors have been scattered away.

Contrary to popular belief, clean air scrubbed by a storm lets more red rays reach the viewer than dirty air would.

Dust and smog at low levels would scatter the light too much for an ideal sunset. (High-level particles like those left by a volcanic eruption, can, however, cause a red afterglow.) question@nytimes.com.

SCIENCE

The Particle That Wasn’t

By DENNIS OVERBYEAUG. 5, 2016

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The Large Hadron Collider at CERN in 2014. CreditPierre Albouy/Reuters

A great “might have been” for the universe, or at least for the people who study it, disappeared Friday.

Last December, two teams of physicists working at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider reported that they might have seen traces of what could be a new fundamental constituent of nature, an elementary particle that is not part of the Standard Model that has ruled particle physics for the last half-century.

A bump on a graph signaling excess pairs of gamma rays was most likely a statistical fluke, they said. But physicists have been holding their breath ever since.

If real, the new particle would have opened a crack between the known and the unknown, affording a glimpse of quantum secrets undreamed of even by Einstein. Answers to questions like why there is matter but not antimatter in the universe, or the identity of the mysterious dark matter that provides the gravitational glue in the cosmos. In the few months after the announcement, 500 papers were written trying to interpret the meaning of the putative particle.

On Friday, physicists from the same two CERN teams reported that under the onslaught of more data, the possibility of a particle had melted away.

“We don’t see anything,” said Tiziano Camporesi of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research and a spokesman for one of the detector teams known as C.M.S., on the eve of the announcement. “In fact, there is even a small deficit exactly at that point.”

His statement was echoed by a member of the competing team, known as Atlas. James Beacham, of Ohio State University, said, “As it stands now, the bumplet has gone into a flatline.”

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“This is the success of science, this is what science does,” he added.

Dr. Camporesi said, “It’s disappointing because so much hype has been made about it.” But, he added, noting that the experimenters had always cautioned that the bump was most likely a fluke, “we have always been very cool about it.”

SCIENCE By Jeffery DelViscio, Catherine Spangler and Soo-Jeong Kang 5:35

Collision Course

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Collision Course

It was the longest, most costly manhunt in science for an elusive particle that was said to be key to the workings of the universe. For a generation of physicists, it was an appointment with history.

 By Jeffery DelViscio, Catherine Spangler and Soo-Jeong Kang on Publish DateMarch 4, 2013. Photo by Denis Balibouse/Reuters. Watch in Times Video »

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The new results were presented in Chicago at the International Conference of High Energy Physics, ICHEP for short, by Bruno Lenzi of CERN for the Atlas team, and Chiara Rovelli for their competitors named for their own detector called C.M.S., short for Compact Muon Solenoid.

The presentations were part of an outpouring of dozens of papers from the two teams on the results so far this year from the collider, all of them in general agreement with the Standard Model.

The main news is that the collider, which had a rocky start, exploding back in 2008, is now running “swimmingly” in CERN’s words, producing up to a billion proton-proton collisions a second.

“We’re just at the beginning of the journey,” said Fabiola Gianotti, CERN’s director-general, in a statement.

But perhaps nature has not gotten the memo.

The non-result has further deepened an already deep mystery about the famous Higgs boson, which explains why other particles have mass, and whose discovery resulted in showers of champagne and Nobel Prizes four years ago.

The Higgs, one of the heaviest elementary particles known, weighs about 125 billion electron volts, in the units of mass and energy favored by particle physicists — about as much as an entire iodine atom. That, however, is way too light by a factor of trillions according to standard quantum calculations, physicists say, unless there is some new phenomenon, some new physics, exerting its influence on the universe and keeping the Higgs mass from zooming to cataclysmic scales. That would mean new particles.

“We have seen the Higgs, we expect to see something else,” said Lisa Randall, a Harvard particle theorist who was not part of the CERN experiments. Hence the excitement over the December bump. Its mass, about 750 billion electron volts, was in the range where something should happen.

“It would have been great if it was there,” Dr. Randall said. “It is the sort of thing they should be looking for if we want to understand the Higgs.”

SCIENCE

How Lowering Crime Could Contribute to Global Warming

Trilobites

By TATIANA SCHLOSSBERG AUG. 3, 2016

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The entrance to Dartmoor prison in Devon, England. A recent study estimated the annual carbon footprint of crime in England and Wales, and found that reducing crime could actually cause society’s overall carbon footprint of society to increase. CreditGeography Photos/UIG via Getty Images

It sounds simple: If something has a big carbon footprint and you get rid of it, you eliminate those carbon dioxide emissions. Right?

But it’s not always that easy. In a recent study published in The Journal of Industrial Ecology, researchers at the Center for Environmental Strategy at the University of Surrey in England estimated the annual carbon footprint of crime in England and Wales, and found that reducing crime could actually cause society’s overall carbon footprint of society to increase.

The findings illustrated the rebound effect, which describes how reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases in one area can lead to more emissions in the aggregate, because of direct or indirect effects. It’s something that policy makers have often been encouraged to consider when they set out to reduce emissions.