COMM 313: Editorial Processes
Broadsheet computerized pagination exercise

Background: You (and/or your team) are section editor(s) for a North Dakota weekly broadsheet higher education features section. Your newspaper circulates primarily to students and staff at a medium-sized state university, North Snowshoe State, in your town, Gackle, but also circulates regionally, picked up mostly by prospective students, and possibly alumni. You aim for content of interest to that audience. You try to be entertaining, but you are not a promotional tool for the university.

What you'll learn:
• How to work in a broadsheet format.
• How to choose typefaces to make an appropriate and attractive layout.
• How to choose and edit stories, and write headlines appropriate to the publication's audience.

Instructions:
1. Open New document. In dialogue box choose Custom, and set up two broadsheet newspaper pages. Dimensions: 133p by 81p, tall format, facing pages, margins 6p all around. Set up 6-column grid: 6 col, 2 p between each col. Be sure you have a broadsheet layout before continuing! (See illustration of page 2, below right).

Note: You need to fill two broadsheet pages with stories and photos. If you wish, you can add a third page for jumps or other material. Page one has no advertisements. Page two has ads, as indicated below.

2. In Preferences, Units & Increments dialogue box, change vertical ruler to Inches. This allows you to measure in column inches.

3. On the second page of the broadsheet, lay in space for these advertisements:

• Taste of India 6X4 (six col by four col in)
• Old Broadway 4X4

Draw single 1 pt rules to indicate the ads, just as you did for the dummy sheets, and write names and sizes on the blocks in 24 pt type. (Your advertising staff will put in the ads later.)

4. On your flash/jump drive or desktop (save to your own drive later), set up a New Folder, entitled Broadsheet. Copy the material below to separate Word files, and save into your folder. Note: You won't use all of the stories, or photos.

Food

Losing weight

Lake

Bad boyfriend

Comm stats

ND stats

Weeds

Sleep

Writing

Plagiarism

Student exchange

Download these photos, save to your folder (see cutlines below):

a. Students

b. Band Day

c. Soccer

d. Band audience

e. Roller blader

f. Indian food

g. med walk

h. beach people

i. castle

j. sleepy student

5. Edit each story in Word. Be sure to spell check (or spell check in InDesign), and decide which stories you'll want to use based on content. You may wish to set up one team member as "slot person" (copy editor), another as "rim person" (headline writer), and a third as "graphics editor" (makeup editor). Each story should be read by two different people. This is standard procedure (usually more than two) on real publications.

Geezer Note: Journalism-style editors used to sit at a large U-shaped table. The person inside the U, or "slot," edited copy for content and made decisions concerning general placement and headline size. The editors around the "rim" of the table did final editing and headline writing.

Exercise your critical editorial judgment here: choose the stories and photos you think would work best for your section and your readers. Some may be inappropriate for your "news mix," based on your audience as described above. You don't have to use every story available. Lay in material so that your publication would be a compelling for people primarily in the late-teens-to-early-20s age group, leaving room for headlines. Keep a Copy Control Sheet as we did earlier to indicate your placement choices.

Design editor (and assistants) considerations:

• Choose a typeface for body and head. General rule: about 9 to 10 pt for body text, about 2-3 pts leading between each line, serif typefaces are easier to read as body text. Typeface for headlines must be a different family than for body text. Likely choices: serif for body, sans serif or Egyptian (slab serif) for hed.
• Use the same typeface for all heds, but add contrast by trying different sizes, bf, ital, condensed, expanded, varied sizes, etc. Avoid choosing monospaced type such as Courier, New York, Chicago or Monoco. (Fonts named after cities are generally screen fonts, and not designed for printing.)
• You may need to jump stories. Include jump lines and jump heads.
• Think modular layout (multicolumn rectangles).
• Use bf (boldface) for bylines and jump lines.
• Use bf or ital (italic) for cutlines. All photos must have cutlines (see below).
• You may need to cut a story to fit, but cut judiciously, not just lopping off the bottom!
• Try using borders, screens, drop caps, pull quotes, bullets, subheads, dingbats, kickers and decks, and sidebars to add interesting contrast to a page.
• You should have at least three stories and two photos on the first page.
• Crop photos, if necessary, and size to fit in Photoshop. Resolution: 150 ppi, or as close to that as possible.
  

Cutlines (be sure to edit):

Some photos are not paired with stories, so if you decide to use them they will be free-standing feature photos.

Photo a, students, could be paired with ND and COMM statistics sidebar: Graduate students at North Snowshoe State University come from around the country and around the world.

Photo b, band day, pair with bad boyfriend story: Sociology Ph.D. student Irving Z. Nern entertains students during Band Day, a North Snowshoe State University tradition. He admits some young men do not behave as well as they might in relationships, but says his research doesn't necessarily apply to students at North Snowshoe State University.

Photo c, soccer: Mens soccer is one of many popular campus sports.

Photo d, band audience: Eva Nern eagerly awaits the next act during campus Band Day.

Photo e, roller blader, pair with sleep story: Student Justin Thyme, Zap, ND, says he tries to get more sleep, but as a nursing major he often has to wake up at three o'clock in the morning to study for upcoming exams.

Photo f, food, pair with food story: This Indian soup is among the unusual offers at the NSSU food court.

Photos g, h and i should be paired with student exchange story.

Photo g, med walk: Rhodes offers a rich choice of restaurants and nightclubs.

Photo h, beach people: Exchange students can study on the beach in all accept the coldest months.

Photo i, castle: The medieval walls built by the Knights of St. John kept repelled conquers from Turkey for two centuries.

Photo j, student, pair with sleep story: Studying until sun-up may seem like a good idea, but research shows sleepy students don't do as well in class.

6. Write heds. Hed at the top of page (probably under a longer story) should be at least 60-1 or 48-2. Avoid making heds too small, which will not look attractive on a broadsheet page, unless a story is only four or five col in. Of course, sizes also suggest the importance of the story.

7. Be sure to leave enough space between elements! Leave 3 p between heds and text for larger heads (above 36 pt); leave 2 p between heds and text for smaller heds (below 36 pt). Avoid using Auto leading for multiline heds larger than 18 pt., as the space looks unattractively large. Set solid often looks more attractive. Highlight the headline, choose leading (upper right A/A in Character palette), and narrow the leading to bring lines of head closer together.

8. Proofread your layout. Hand in assignment for grading by e-mailing it to me as a PDF attachment, ross.collins@ndsu.edu. Be sure to save it under your names, add your names somewhere to the layout, or add your names to the body of the e-mail, so I know it's yours.

9. Hand in Copy Control Sheet separately.