Print guidelines for writers and editors
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“ Keep the writing on the walls.
” Introduction ----X Graffiti is one of NT’s largest and most popular clubs. Our project -- a paper that publishes 4 times a year -- is circulated to the entire student body, and often picked up by the surrounding community. For our work in the 2014-15 school year, we picked up ten Toronto Star Awards, making us one of the best recognized among tens of student-run newspapers in all of Ontario. There is no doubt that your involvement with Graffiti will be of weight and relevance -- which is why there are certain ethical and aesthetic codes that must guide your writing, in order to make it at once
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informative and accurate. Beyond those guidelines, stories are often personal, time-sensitive, and written with a clarity of voice that makes it certain that only the writer in question could have delivered them. And while we can help you hone your skills, the heart of a story is for you to discover.
The Journalistic Code ----X Although we aim to give all voices at NT an outlet, we must do so in an equitable, equal, and accountable way. A. Accuracy 1. Journalists should seek out all relevant points of view and represent them equally. 2. Journalists must protect the anonymity of sources who have requested so. 3. Information should be verified and corroborated by more than one source. B. Fairness 1. For reporting and editorial writing, all substantial opinions, matters, and facts must be presented in a way that is balanced and impartial. For instance, while it is fair to focus on NT views on an article directly relating to changes at the NT community, substantial community or other opposition should also be reported. a. Critical writing (as seen, for instance, in Opinion and Humour) allows a writer to develop a critical opinion on a point of view. It must still acknowledge other perspectives, give credence to other views, and avoid directly attacking those with antithetical opinions. 2. Graffiti shall maintain a “Letters to the Editor� section where any member of the student body can protest an unfair representation or add to an article. 3. Journalists should honestly state the level of substantiation they have been able to achieve and, when relevant, state the manner in which quotations
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or information was gathered. (E.g.: “A single source told Graffiti…” OR “Smith said that…”) 4. Publishing hateful material, or material giving space to a hateful group is strictly prohibited. C. 1. 2. 3.
Honesty Plagiarism is prohibited. Writers must avoid significant conflicts of interest. Writers must recognize that, although their positions on issues of interest are often determined by their background, they must endeavour to report objectively. 4. Critical writing, which focuses on the development of a critical point of view on an event, is still bound to the above rules: it must be carefully cognizant of other points of view, and acknowledge them in a respectful way.
Content ----X We loosely distinguish between three types of article writing. All three have a place inside each section -- some just happen to be better represented. 1. Reporting Short, sweet, factual. 2. Critical Writing Your substantiated, balanced, and complex opinion matters. 3. Editorial Writing Different opinions, views, and stakeholder perspectives must be balanced to deconstruct an issue. Graffiti has six permanent editorial sections - Internal News Primarily reporting on events that happen within the NT community.
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- External News Writing on events outside the NT community, including but not limited to: midtown/North Toronto, Toronto, Canada, and other countries. Accessibility, unique analysis that brings the issue close to the student body, and objectivity are emphasized. - Features Reporting, critical, and editorial writing on large issues. Features includes articles on the most urgent issues for the NT body; many articles or perspectives on the same issue might be contrasted. - Opinion and Humour Critical writing on matters of opinion and humour. - Arts and Cultures Critical writing on all that is artful and cultural, including but not limited to music, visual arts, concerts, and event reviews. - Sports Reporting on the events both on the NT field and elsewhere, primarily interested in the culture and issues that are unique to the athletic community. We also publish art produced by NT students in an insert called “the Muse”, thematically focussed articles on a different social justice related issue at “Journalism for Human Rights,” and letters in response to articles published in the paper.
Interviews ----X As a journalist, your first and foremost responsibility is to write stories that are true to the community around you -- providing relevant insights with meticulously chosen data. With the rise of the internet, high quality journalism on any topic imaginable is available to teenagers at the click of a button. As a local newspaper, our comparative advantage is that we write for NT. Still, due to the nature of most of the pieces we report on, you will have to interview
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members of the student body, teaching body, North Toronto community -- and sometimes, even elected officials or outsiders working in a field of interest. Before you interview anyone, you need to understand the story. The better informed you are about the subject, the calmer you will feel going into an interview and the more you will get out of it. When researching a story, always start with the easiest information, and then move on to the most complex. 1. Read publicly available information first. Do a Google search. Read up as many articles on the topic as possible, but take care not to plagiarize. While The Toronto Star might be a good starting point for you to understand the main contentions over Bill C-51, you should try to analyze information in a fresh way -- be it by making it more accessible to readers or by exposing a new facet of the issue -- e.g. what NT students born abroad feel. 2. Determine whom to contact. Although your friends can often provide you people with keen insights, we would advise you to venture outside of your comfort zone. Advisor meetings are great starting points to getting exposed to students you’d never meet; use interested students as a leverage point to finding people within the community who hold strong convictions about either side of an issue, or possess a degree of expertise. For instance, a discussion with a North Toronto alumnus gave a writer the contact information necessary to interview a math professor on the topic mathematical literacy. Be strategic and ambitious. 3. Contact your sources. Email, phone, facebook, face-to-face contact...there are so many ways to reach out to interested stakeholders. If they are busy, or tell you to contact them later, follow up with your questions. Ask direct, simple questions. Don’t make statements or make your own opinions known. 4. Synthesize. Think critically about what you just heard. Why might this person’s opinion align this way? What kind of experiences do they speak from? While you should never directly criticize your sources, you need to be cognizant of the kind of worldview they represent, in order to balance the opinions in your piece, and embed them into the larger picture.
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Writing ----X We have reprinted George Orwell’s five tips for succinct, effective writing. 1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. 2. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use the passive where you can use the active. 5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
If you are interested in learning more about the conventions of high quality formal writing, we also recommend that you check out Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. It is a quick, funny, and rewarding read.