Newspapers In Education Visit NIE online at www.sidneydailynews.com, www.troydailynews.com or www.dailycall.com
All about the newspaper
Word of the Week paragraph — a self-contained unit of a discourse in writing dealing with a particular point or idea
Newspaper Knowledge Survey your classmates or your family to find out which sections of the newspaper are everyone’s favorites. Make a graph of the results. If you were going to add a new section to the newspaper, what would it be? Why? Which section do you think young people read most often? Go online to find out about newspapers that have special sections written for or by young people. Write a report telling what you learned about these sections. Do you think they are a good idea?
Printing and Delivering the News Most newspapers today use some kind of offset printing. That means that the page image is etched onto a thin plate that is mounted on the printing press. The inked image is then transferred onto a rubber roller that sends the image onto paper. Most inks are made of vegetable oils, such as soy.
Write On! Go online to find out about the history of the printing press. Write a brief summary of what you learned.
NIE Coordinator: Dana Wolfe / Graphic Designer: Scarlett E. Smith
What is News? News is hard to define. One definition says that something is news if it has "the quality of being sufficiently interesting to be reported in news bulletins." Of course, that is a pretty broad area. News might be anything from a natural disaster to a human achievement or failure – or even something that is just so odd and funny it makes the news. News also has been defined this way: When dog bites man, it's not news; when man bites dog, it is. Can you see the difference? Talk about it with your class or your family. As you read the newspaper, you might wonder why certain stories are in the news and why some of those are on the front page. Each day, editors decide which stories to include and which to place on page one. Know your newspaper. Get to know your newspaper by going on a scavenger hunt to find each of these items. Write the page number on which you found each one. Index page ____________________ A help-wanted ad page ____________________ A photo of a politician page ____________________ An example of good news page ____________________ A funny comic strip page ____________________ A display ad for clothing page ____________________ The name of a foreign country page ____________________ The weather report page ____________________ Stories get into the newspaper for lots of different reasons Choose a story from today's front page and analyze it for each of the following reasons. You may want to do some Internet research to help you investigate further and answer each question about the story. Headline of your chosen story: __________________________ __________________________ Timeliness: Is it happening right now? __________________________
__________________________ Relevance: Is it of local interest? __________________________ __________________________ Magnitude: Is it a story that affects a great number of people? __________________________ __________________________ Unexpectedness: Is it unusual, or did it happen without warning? __________________________ __________________________ Conflict: Does the story invoke a major struggle? __________________________ __________________________ Continuity: Is the story following up on an earlier story? __________________________ __________________________ Emotion: Are emotions such as fear, jealousy, love and hate involved? __________________________ __________________________ Progress: Is it a story of new hope or achievement? __________________________ __________________________
Newspaper Sections No two newspapers are exactly alike. A newspaper reflects its community. What the newspaper looks like, then, depends on where it is and what is important to its community. The community essentially “builds” its newspaper based on its values. Sections vary from newspaper to newspaper. Most newspapers have sections for local news, national news and international news to tell readers what is currently happening. Most newspapers have a features section that informs readers about the day-today life of the community. There, readers find human-interest stories and information about upcoming events. While the news sections deal mostly with facts, the features section offers a perspective beyond just the facts. Most newspapers also have a sports section, in which readers can follow their favorite teams locally and beyond. You might find a food section in your newspaper, with recipes as well as ads for
local supermarkets. All of these sections allow readers to customize their newspaper reading experience. They can choose to read what interests them. The sections also give advertisers the power to reach the audience they most want. Here’s an example. A 2006 report from the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) shows that of women in the to 50 newspaper markets, 86 percent read the main news section. But only 45 percent of the women read the sports section. If you were promoting a product for women, then wouldn’t you want to place your ad in the news section, where more women would be likely to see it? What do you think is the most widely read section of the newspaper? The same NAA report reveals that it’s main news with 86 percent of all adult readers, followed by local news with 83 percent.
Glossary of Terms
Here is a glossary of newspaper words and terms. How many examples of these can you find in today's newspaper? The Associated Press (AP) – a cooperative, worldwide newsgathering service. Assignment – any newsgathering task given to a reporter. Banner – a headline stretching across the top of a page. Beat – a reporter's regular assignment, such as a city hall beat or police beat, or a geographic area. Caption – text accompanying a photo or illustration; also call a cutline. Circulation – the total number of copies of a publication distributed in one day. Classified advertising – ads arranged according to the product or service advertised. Display ad – advertising other than classifieds. Ears – space at the top of the front page on each side of the newspaper's name where weather news, an index to pages or announcements of special features appear. Editorial – an article that expresses the opinion of the newspaper's editors. First Amendment – the first article of the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing U.S. residents freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition. Flag – the printed title of a newspaper at the top of the front page Gutter – the space or margin between facing pages, or the vertical space between any two columns of print. Human interest story – a lighter story as opposed to a "hard news" or "breaking news" story. Index – the outline of the newspaper's contents.
Jump – to continue a story from one page to another. Kicker – small headline, often in italics. Letter to the editor – a letter in which a reader expresses his or her views in the newspaper. Masthead – a newspaper's state of ownership, place of publication, executive personnel and other information. Newsprint – a grade of paper sometimes made from recycled paper and wood pulp, used for printing newspapers. Obit – a biography of a recently deceased person; short for obituary. Op-ed – space for comment facing (opposite) the editorial page. Publisher – the chief executive of a newspaper. Put to bed – a printer's term meaning that all the pages of an edition are completed and the presses are ready to roll. Quotes – the portion of a story that shows exactly what a source told the reporter. Review – a writer's critical evaluation of an artistic event, such as a movie or play. Scoop – an exclusive story or photograph. Sidebar – a secondary news story that supports or amplifies a major story. Subhead – a small, one-line headline inserted in the body of a story. Tabloid – a newspaper of small page size. Tip – information that may lead to a story. United Press International (UPI) – a worldwide newsgathering service. Wire copy – editorial content supplied by outside sources, transmitted across a wire network.
Notable Newspaper Quotations “The newspaper fits the reader’s program while the listener must fit the broadcaster’s program.” — Kingman Brewster “There is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions, and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available. Every newspaper headline is a potential song.” — Phil Ochs “You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have all the facts, you cannot make proper judgements about what is going on.” — Harry S. Truman “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” — Thomas Jefferson
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