PART 2 : SKILLS TRAINING

D: PUBLIC SPEAKINGD1 : ECC guidelines on public speaking technique D2 : ECC guidelines on preparing a speech D3 : ECC public speaking sk ills workshop

E: FINANCESE1 : ECC finances and fundraising

F: WRITINGFI : How to write a news story F2 : How to write a feature F3 : Some basic principles for writing sk ills F4 : Styles of writing

LAYOUTG1 : Production and designG2 : LayoutG3 : CartoonsG4 : Photojournal ism

PRESSH1 : ECC guidelines on press workH2 : Dealing with the mediaH3 : Making news newsworthyH4 : Press releasesH5 : Press conferencesH6 : Press officers

I: ORGANISING PUBLIC MEETINGS AND SEMINARS11 : Public meetings12 : Seminars

I C C G U I D E L I N E S O N

P U B L I C S P E A K I N G T E C H N I Q U E

INTRODUCTION: CLOSING THE DISTANCE

Public speaking is a l l about C O M M U N I C A T I N G with your audience Between you and the audience is a great distance, both physical and in that y o u’re doing ail the talking and they're lust listening. Jour aim is to close the distance, to reach vour audience and move them. The difference between good and bad

distance orto^maintain U.1”9 3f°Ur V°iCe and b°dy to narrow that

Ihtlt ? uidelines are not a checklist for The Right Way to Talk ls no one correct speaking style. You must find' your own

: ^ ^ T h e ^ o o i n t / ^ 5, naHtU,r a l l l a" d that yoU feel comfortable improve it. technique b e l o w are simply ways to help

#?OSTURE AND BODY LANGUAGE

While there aren't any bonus points for good posture, bad nosturpand irritating physical mannerisms can inhibit effective communi­cation and put people off. e communi-

nLltanx S™ AIGHT* Stand STILL. Your body, and especially your

S p D o n V s h u f f l T s „ r l d 5? R“ AXED as possible. Don't hunch

frim loot ?o foot.' P ard backward rock

Most importantly, TALK TO and LOOK AT your audience Make sure that you cover the ENTIRE audience. ' M a * e SUre

Speakers often don't know what to do with their hands. Putting

behind*1 y°Ur PocI5et-u s u a l l y looks too casual and clasping them behind your back looks too formal. Both are defensive bodvlanguage. Its best to keep your hands at your side or to rest

/ ^ ^ightly on the lectern. Use your hands for emphasis and tor T o r m e n t s ! imp°rtant but avoid r e p e t i t i v ^ n l n ^

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sniffinaOIl9onll v°U 'r^ °n th® P.latforrn D° NOT SMOKE. Chewing gum, o?fJnsi?e Oh scratchin9 yourself are also consideredoffensive. Oh yes, and make sure you have the same colour socks

VOICE

-nrf nrf/e *ai k L 0 U D L Y ' CLEARLY and SLOWLY enough to be heard and understood by everyone in the hall. near a

A big problem with many speakers is that they're too unemotional boring and monotonous in their delivery. So USE your voice WhereEMPHASIZE how loud/soft and how slow7fast you ta!k!n ^ n n f i • ^ or ldeas y°u want to stand out. Its worthplanning m advance where you want to place the emphasis in aS nf?arouse in the audience. Par more speakers underact than overact

Inexperienced speakers are u s u a l l y scared to use SILENCE, the Good Long Pause. The pause can be very effective just before or just after an important point. It can also be used to indicate a shift in direction or to g i v e the audience an opportunity to absorb what you've said. You will also pause momentarily to take a breath! Make sure you do this at an appropriate point in the sentence.

ROTESTalk to your audience and not to your notes. You'll want your notes in your hand or on a lectern. Havi n g them on a low table means spending too much time looking down. Every time you look down, your voice will get lost and the audience will have to look at the top of your head. T h i s is not c o n s i d e r e d good communication.

If your hands shake don't h o l d your notes. Make sure in advance ^ihere's a lectern to put them on.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT HECKLERS

The most effective way of handling hecklers is to IGNORE them and KEEP TALKING. Responding to the h e c k l e r will only put you off your stride and be distracting for the audience. If a heckl«*r becomes really disruptive, the chairperson should take over aftd handle the situation.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT NERVOUSNESS

There's really very little you can do. Most experienced speakers feel nervous before and during their talks. Being a litt£Le nervous is not such a bad thing anyway - it keeps the adrenalin pumping and puts the sparkle in your eye s. PRACTISING your speech oyer and over again and becoming COMPLETELY FAMILIAR with it wi41 give you the confidence you need.

• f your voice drys up while you're talking, make sure in advance hat a glass of water is available.

FEEDBACK

Make sure you get it, before you speak and afterwards. It's the only way to improve. If there's a TV crew at the meeting at which you speak, try to get a copy of their video. Watching yourself speak is the best way of identifying strongpoints and faults. If its at all possible, use video equipment when running the public speaking workshops.

USING A MICROPHONE

Mikes are very difficult to use. They flatten your voice and restrict your movement. Its also virtually impossible to guage whether you're coming over too loud or soft.

If you have to use a mike:* make sure before you speak that its at the right height so that

you aren't talking to the f loor or ceiling;* don t stand too close to it — a good mike will easily pick you

up from a foot away;

* practise with a mike before the meeting (churches can be used for this).

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NOTES

Although people have very different ways of approaching a talk,you might find useful some basic points on the PREPARATION,CONTENT, STYLE and PRACTISING of a speech.

PREPARATIONYou need to be well prepared even before you begin to write thespeech. You need to be clear on:* what the organisers of the meeting expect of you* for how long you are expected to talk* what kind of people you'll be speaking to (for example, age,

attitude, expectations et cetera).* the key message(s) you want to get across* the broad aims of the s p e e c h (for e x a m p l e , to p r o v i d e

information, to arouse interest, to entertain, to call to action, to w i n p e o p l e o v e r , to p r o m o t e a p a r t i c u l a r position/organisation et cetera).

In preparing the content of a speech, consider the following points:* Begin by working out a framework for the talk* It's very important to h a v e a p o w e r f u l / e m o t i o n a 1 opening and

conclusion. Your opening establishes how worth listening to you are, and your conclusion is often what will be most remembered.

* Keep your speech simple and the messages/arguments clear and few. It's more d i f f i c u l t to absorb information when listening than when reading.

* If your speech is long or fairly complicated, inform your audience of the ground you intend covering, summarize arguments as you go a l o n g and make it clear when you are shifting direction.

* Write your speech as you w o u l d n aturally speak it. Don't use language that is too formal or too flowery.

When preparing the content of the speech, try also to inject as w u c h VARIETY into it as possible. To keep your audience's interest, to c o m m u n i c a t e e f f e c t i v e l y and to s u b s t a n t i a t e contraversial arguments:* quote from court cases, Parliament, newspapers, people you've

met, et cetera* use powerful statistics (but don't overdo it)* talk from personal experience and about your own feelings* recount stories and tell anecdotes if appropriate* use lively language, metaphors, et cetera* convey the feelings you wish to arouse in your audience

STYLEStyle is an elusive quality. Just think of some good speakers and how different their speaking styles are. Don't try to copy anyone else. Your own style will emerge naturally from the way you write and talk.

PRACTISEOnce your speech is ready, whether you speak from detailed or from brief notes, become ABSOLUTELY FAMILIAR with it. Practise it out loud, preferably to ECC friends who can give you feedback.

Become familiar with the content and the delivery, with the pauses, the points of emphasis, the pace, et cetera. (Churchill even planned where he would clear his throatl?!).

Make sure that the speech is within its time limits. Be careful that all the practise doesn't inhibit a natural way of speaking but, as a rule, the more familiar you are with your talk the more confident you will be when giving it.

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NOTES

Too many of our activists see public speaking as an awesome task, too difficult and frightening to even attempt. The result is that we are dependent on a few veteran ravers. This is obvi o u s l y an unhealthy state of affairs, not least because it starts to get boring after a while.

Our problem is not that we do not have more activists capable of speaking publicly - it is that they lack the confidence to do it for the first time.

These workshops give ECC activists an opportunity to prepare a speech and to speak for the first time (or to practise) in a situation which comes close to real speaking conditions but which is not as scary.

The workshops incorporate some important ingredients of effective public-speaking: they aguaint new speakers with basic speaking TECHNIQUES, give them an opportunity to PRACTISE in a safe e n v i r o n m e n t and get i m m e d i a t e F E E D B A C K , and b u i l d their ^ONFIDENCE.

The first workshop involves people d e l i v e r i n g extracts from a speech that is given to them. The second workshop involves people preparing and delivering their own speeches.

WORKSHOP 1

TIME: +/- two hours,

MATERIALS: 1. Copies of a dramatic speech that everyone wiil p r a c t i s e d e l i v e r i n g (for e x a m p l e , M a n d e l e’e response to Botha's offer of conditional release, Slabbert's farewell speech to Parliament or one of Terre'Blanche's speeches).

^ E N U E :

2. Copies of the ECC Guide lines on Public-Speaking 'Technique.

It is best to simulate actual speaking conditions and use a large hall with a stage and a lectern.

PROCEDURE: 1 . The facilitator explains how the workshop is to run and gets feedback from the group.

2. The group brainstorms what Lt, thinks makes for g o o d p u b l i c s p e a k i n g and then d i s c u s s e s the Guidelines (fifteen to twenty minutes). The ideas of the group can be listed on newsheet.

3. The facilitator gives everyone a copy of the speech and allocates to each person a different passage from it. Each passage should take about two to three minutes to read aloud.

4. People are given time to familiarise themselves with their passage and to work out how to deliver U..

5. Each person in turn d e l i v e r s his/her passage from the stage. The rest of the g r o u p is spread throughout the hall.

6. Immediately after each person, the group as a whole evaluates him/her. This is the most important part of the w o r k s h o p . The feedback should consist of positive as w e l l as negative comments. Negative comments should be concrete and not vague, and should be accompanied by suggested Improvements.

7. Once all the participants have d e l i v e r e d their passages, they may want to have another turn taking into account the feedback they received. The second reading can be done with or without feedback, depending on how the group feels.

8. The group evaluates the workshop.

WORKSHOP 2For this workshop the participants practise delivering speeches they have prepared themselves. The speeches should be about five minutes in length.

•he workshop runs exactly as the first, with people now receiving feedback on the content as w e l l as on the d e l i v e r y of their

talks.

E v e r y o n e s h o u l d be g i v e n a c o p y of the ECC G u i d e l i n e s on Preparing a Speech before the workshop.

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SA&fU HANbftQOK m STVW tNT TOURNAU& M h o w t o w itrre a n e w s s t o k y

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4. How to write English even your Editor can understand

HOW TO WRITE A NEWS STORY

Years of high school mis-education have conditioned you into believing that your f irs t thought when putting pen to paper is : “What am I going to say A distressing error, for that should be only your second thoutfit. Your first thoutft is : "Who do I expect to read this ?" And the answer, in your case, l regret to announce, is : the much-vilified "apathetic student."

Members of this breed are seldom at their best in the early hours of the morning when your paper goes out for distribution. So many wild parties gallons of beer or vin-inferieur so many all-night dashes to finish essays due last week, tend to take the bloom off living. All your reader wants fromyour paper as he grabs a copy between one tedious lecture and the next, is a lit t le light re lie f, a l i t t le escapism, a lit t le chuckle here and there

J Tdl.saPP01ntmentj he 9ets. A glance at the grey pages of earnest Politics I I jargonese, and your paper is hurled aside. The local campus watering spot provides pleasanter companionship.

With that Prob"lem " the battle to win the attention of disinterested readers, without sacrificing serious content. . I t is a battlei ^ f J rSt ParaGraPh• That f irs t paragraph of any storyI. * ° ^mP?rtaru that journalists give i t its own name, the "intro", and devote s much time to writing i t as they do to all the rest of the story. For the

intro has two functions :

It must have enough IMPACT to grab a reader's wandering eye and hold it .

It must contain the story's most interesting point, called the "angle "The angle of a story does not refer to the degree to which the reporte’r has managed to distort the facts ; rather i t is the essence of that story ■^d ^ k e °(t NEWS minUS 311 fn llS> WhiCh l i f t U 001 ?f the mundaneImagine for example that you ‘ are covering an SRC meeting. A heatedargument is ensuing over an intervarsity with an Afrikaans university

wants segregated seating for spectators. In the middle of the debatesomeone turns to the Treasurer and asks him how much money he will set

1Dte™ arsity. None, he says, sheepishly, because the SRC is bankrupt. Pandemonium then breaks out.

The angle of this story is that the SRC is bankrupt. The fact that this was revealed at an SRC meeting is secondary. So is the intervarsity debate. So is the way pandemonium broke out afterwards. What makes this a story of interest to your readers is the single fact that THEIR student leaders are suddenly penniless.Let's take a look at how the report of such a meeting might be written :

The SRC is bankrupt. INTRO. Essence of story only.

The Treasurer, Mr. Fred Weasel , told the student council on Wednesday that "greedy student societies" had spent all of the R30 000 budget allocated by the Administration.

BACKGROUND (where i t happened, hew it happened, etc.) PLUS ANY SECONDARY ANGLES (eg. how much money spent).

“The problem is that societies are forever spending money on expensive triv ia ," he said, "and there is no way I can stop them.""The Treasurer is almost powerless. He is no more than a figurehead, yet it is he who must take the blame."

REST OF STORY, RUN EITHER IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OR IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE.

Ms. Helen Sizzling, the Cultural Affairs Co-ordinator, said Mr. Weasel's expl anation was "p itifu lly feebleEtc. etc. etc.

OTHER QUOTES, PRESENTING OTHER POINTS OF VIEW OR ADDING COLOUR TO STORY.

The intro consists of four words. Not many intros can be pared down that far, but always the rule is that the less words usad, the snappier the sentence and the more likely i t is to be read. I t is not necessary to say :

The Student Representative Council is bankrupt, the Treasurer,Mr. Fred Weasel, announced at a meeting last Wednesday.

The extra words do no more than slow down the impact of the story. They can be le ft to the second paragraph, where background facts are filled in, explaining what happened, where i t happened and who i t happened to. At the third paragraph, one can do one of two things :

( i ) I f the incident unfolded step by step through time (eg. a car accident or a robbery or a sports match), then start at the beginning and describe i t chronologically ;

( i i ) I f the incident did not unfold chronologically (eg. a politicalcontroversy), then start with the most important facts, then proceed in pyramidal fashion down through the less important facts.

Notice how short all the paragraphs are. Across the narrow measure of newspaper colunns, any paragraph with more than two sentences seems endless.

Now le t's take a look at some typical student news-writing crimes, all culled from old South African campus papers :

1. DROPPING m ANGLE

A favourite student error : misreading the points that make a story news. Take this example :

Immediately after the mass meeting last week in protest against the detention of student leaders, a picket was held in Jan Smuts Avenue.The demonstrators were well-behaved and the organisers seemed to have good control of the situation. At one point, however, a group of RAU students grouped across the road and threw oranges, eggs and even stones at the pickets.

The most interesting point of this story has been buried in the third paragraph : the ba llistic missile act by the gentlemen from RAU. Many readers may never have got that far : they probably gave up after the platitudes about well-behaved demonstrators. The story could have been wri tten as :

RAU students pelted Wits protesters with eggs, stones and oranges last week.The RAU students objected to the Wits pickets in Jan Smuts Avenue demanding the release of detained English student leaders.

2. OVERLOADING INTROS.

It is not necessary to cram as many facts as possible into your intros - readers are quite willing to wait until the second or even third paragraphs for background information. For example :

The President of the Conservative Students' Alliance, Mr. Bryan Hack, who is also a UCT SRC member, and another man, Mr. Arnold van der Westhuizen, were arrested and charged with the attempted murder of PFP leader Mr. Colin Eglin, at his Sea Point home, last month.

Neither the fact that Mr. Hack is a UCT SRC member, nor the name of his alleged acconplice are important enough to deserve a place in the intro. And since people who have been charged must obviously have been arrested, the reference to the arrest ij pointless. A better intro would have been :

The President of the Conservative Students' Alliance, Mr. Bryan Hack, has been charged with the attempted murder of Prog. Fed leader Mr. Colin Eglin.Mr. Hack, a UCT SRC member, was arrested with Mr. Arnold van der Westnuizen, a lawyer, following a shooting attack at Hr. Eglin's Sea Point home last month.

3. WORDINESS

Next to drunk and disorderly behaviour, the most conrnon of student crimes is based on a high school myth that the more v*>rds you know the more educated

you must be. Long, waffling sentences waste space. And the more space wasted, the more articles that have to be le ft out of each edition. Some of those rejected articles could well be yours. Words do not only communicate, they also obstruct communication. The more words there are in a sentence, the harder i t is to understand. News stories must FLOW, and the only way to get them to flow is to ruthlessly chop out all tautologies. Let's take this example :

Substantial economies in most areas of expenditure in the university will have to be-made from next year in order to meet the anticipated heavy deficit resulting from the adverse effects of the government's Van Wyk de Vries formula.

I rather pride myself on the fact that I understood this sentence (taken from a university staff publication) on only the fifth reading. No doubt there are sane beings about who can understand this kind of thing at a glance, but they are usually locked away in post-grad reading rooms, unaware of tne existence of student newspapers. Your average readers are likely to prefer this kind of interpretation of the same sentence :

The university is ready to clamp down on spending next year, when the government is expected to cut back its subsidy.

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Since wordiness is such a popular vice, one more example may be needed to help stamp it out :

Tne Students' Dental Council declared UDI at a meeting last Tuesday when a motion that declared that the SDC dissociated itse lf entirely from the SRC was passed unanimously, following months of anti-SRC feeling amongst the dentists, who feel their budget is too low te meet their needs.

Note the tautologies : i f the SDC have dissociated from the SRC, i t follows that they have done so "entirely", therefore that word is unnecessary.I f the SDC budget is "too low", i t is taken for granted that i t must therefore be too low “for their needs." Here is one way of improving on i t :

Tne Students' Dental Council has cut all ties with the SRC, following months of complaints by the dentists that their budget is too low.At a meeting last Tuesday, a unanimous motion was passed dissociating the Dental Council from the SRC.

Re-read every sentence you write and search for phrases that can be cut down in length. For every unnecessary phrase you chop out, you could well gain another reader. Here are a few do's and don'ts :

DO NOT SftY : SAY :Mr. Gormley, who was a friend of hers ... Her friend, Mr. Gormley ...He told him to try and find them . . . He told him to find them ...I t was announced by the President ... The President said . . . .On behalf of his wife ... For his wife —Utilise __________________________________ Use ...He will be the speaker at ... He will speak ---With the result that ... So that ____

DO NOT SAY :With the exception of . . .Who is of the opinion . . .Driving a blue coloured car ...The motion was entirely spontaneous . . . .The police arrived ...

SAY :Except ...Who thinks .. .Driving a blue car . . .The motion was spontaneous ...

Police arrived

South Africans have a habit of using meaningless modifiers :rather nice ; fairly big ; totally meaningless ; absolutely freezing ; pretty scary ; really exciting ; quite sweet ; absolutely unique.

ACTIVE AND PASSIVEWrite strong, vigorous sentences. Such sentences are invariably in the active : sentences in the passive are harder to digest immediately :

A motion was passed by the Pretoria University SRC last night, excluding blacks from the forthcoming student editors' conference.

Swung round into the active, i t reads :

Pretoria University's SRC last night voted to exclude blacks from the forthcoming student editors' conference.

PARTICIPLES

It is usually wise to avoid starting sentences with participles. Senteoaes which start with participles, start with subsidiary clauses. And sentences starting with subsidiary clauses are harder to di gest, because their meaeing hinges on the main clause - which one only gets to at the end.For example :

Complaining that they had been shortchanged, the Students' Dental Council broke away from the SRC last week.

The sentence is short and snappy, and the angle is correct. But one only understands i t when one gets to the last word. The meaning is clearer i f one turns the sentence upside down :

Tne Students' Dental Council broke away from the SRC last week (note how even i f we stop the sentence at this point i t is in te llig ib le), complaining that they had been shortchanged.

PRESENT TENSE

Use the present tense wherever possible - i t makes sentences live lie r and prevents confusions like this one :

The rugby club had lost its mascot, the Sports Council was told last week.

We know the mascot WAS lost ... but is i t STILL lost ? The present tense makes this clearer :

The rugby club has lost its mascot, the Sports Council was told last week.

7. ABBREVIATIONSAll canpuses abound with mysterious cyphers like GAS, SAYS, RAPE, AIESEC, CSA and innumerable others. Some, like SRC, NUSAS and RAU, your readers can be reasonably expected to recognise. Others need to be spelled out in full the firs t tire they are used in a story :

The Students' Engineering Council (SEC) vanished in a gale force storm last night....

8. IN-JARGONIt takes a mere six months before new students fall into the habit of W jazzing up their conversation with the academic jargon they hear theirlecturers use. I cannot deny that jargon serves a useful purpose - for one thing i t helps camouflage one's icporance, and i t does wonders for boosting one's marks to undeserved heights. But do try and avoid i t in your newspaper. For i f a reader comes across a polysyllabic word he c£*inot understand, he is not going to look i t up in a dictionary. He's just going to turn the page and look for something he CAN understand.

9. HANDLESStudent reporters are expected to know the names of the Vice-Chancellor, the Registrar and the SRC President. But don't expect your readers to know any of them : there are a good few students on every campus who don't even know the names of their own lecturers. In deference to them, i t is advis£>le to give EVERY SINGLE PERSON you write about a "handle", oraeme tag. For exanple :

Former Wits Vice-Chancellor, Professor G.R. Bozzoli, told a cheering0 mass meeting last week that his turnips were growing splendidly.

ORThe secretary of the Psychology Department, Mrs. Aletta Knutz, said the office was always "crawling with bloody loonies."

OR try a lit t le “character sketching":

Balding Mr. Alpheus Snog, who refuses to wear a hearing aid ("Damn you, I can hear perfectly well i f you just shout") says he is as irresistible to women as always.

Labels are often the key point of a story. For example :

Engineering Student Joe Sloshed, 23, appeared in court yesterday on drunken driving charges ...

is less interesting than :Theology major Ethel red Thripps, 17, appeared in court yesterday on drunken driving charges ...

10. OVERKILL

Don't use loaded words. Don't write :

Miss Alice Phripps claimed that Father Christmas was a "genuineand profound religious experience, sullied alas by a crass materialistsociety."

The single word "claimed" implies that Miss Phripps is talking nonsense.Quite possibly she is - but leave that to your readers to decide. Students already think campus papers are all left-wing propaganda sheets designed to brainwash them. A more neutral tone by no means blunts the force of your message, and i t irritates readers a good deal less.Therefore make sure that none of the people you write about ever "claim" or ■allege1' (which suggests they are wrong) or "point out" or "explain" (which suggests they are right). Everyone should just SAY.Don't overstate your case either. Too many reporters, eager to get “impact" into their intros, put in more thunder than the facts warrant. This, for example, is my own firs t effort for a student paper :

Controversy rages all over campus about the decision to shelve plans for the new Performing Arts Centre.

The truth is - as the rest of the story shows - that not more than half a dozen people on canpus even knew there were any plans for such a centre.

11. TIME FLATTENING

Don't use phrases like "a l i t t le while afterwards" or “ later" - firstly they are usually unnecessary, secondly they remind the reader of how long your narrative has been dragging on - a sure way of scaring him off. For example

... After a l i t t le while he turned the gun on the girl and shot her in the head.Later tney took her to hospital , where her condition is described as critical . . .

Which is better as :

... Tnen he turned the gun or the girl and shot her in the head.She was taken to hospital, where her condition is described as critica l .. .

12. SUBSECTIONS .Often stories have a nurrber of different aspects to them, and reporters have trouble ordering them. Although your English Department is sure to frown on the practice, I would suggest that the sinplest method is to divide your stories into numbered subsections. Numbered sections also have the advantage of being visually appealing when the page is laid out. I f the subsections are likely to be long, chop up your story into a number of shorter stories, one on each aspect. Readers are more willing to tackle several short stories on the same topic than wade through one long one.

GROUPINGI f you have interviewed several people on a subject, keep their quotes separate. Start with all the quotes given by Person A, then follow with Perscr B, then follow with Person C. Don't mix the three sets of quotes together, because readers have trouble working out who is who and who said what.

Itf>ACTGetting the facts and the angle right is only half the battle. The real trick is to get IMPACT. Take this example of a competent intro :

Miner Mr. James Wilson was badly burnt when he l i t a cigarette while cleaning his feet in benzine.

I t has the right line, but i t lacks excitement. Here is how the New York Sun ran the same story, using a now classic intro :

Miner James Wilson l i t a cigarette while bathing his feet in benzine.He may 1i ve.

Inpact depends on imagination, and there are no rules for using your imagination. The best idea is to f irs t narrow down your angle and tighten up the intro, leaving out all secondary information. Then play about with words, using particularly those vigorous, blunt Anglo-Saxonisms which give oonph to a sentence. Let's take an example of a typical canpus story :

Acting on a tip-off, ten policemen, led by Warrant Officer George Botha, arrive on campus on Friday night. After searching around fruitlessly for over an hour, they find Men's Residence, and go in to discover over 50 menters of the Mountaineering Club watching reel 3 of the film "Emmanuelle 2." They confiscate the film and take the names of everyone present.

Here is a first attempt at the story :

Ten policemen raided Men's Residence on Friday, where 50 menfcers of the Mountain Club were watching "Emmanuel le 2", took the names of everyone present, and confiscated the film.

The angle is right, but it 's too wordy. We try again :

Policemen broke up a blue-movie show on canpus on Friday, confiscated the film and took the nanes of everyone present.

Much tighter, and quite usable. But it 's too generalised and needs a l i t t le more colour :

Fifty mountaineers lost all interest in the banned film "Eiwnanuelle 2"at the end of the third reel - when ten cops burst into the room.

And to end off this section, le t's go back to the very first intro we wrote in this chapter___

The SRC is bankrupt .

. . . . and rewrite i t with IhPACT :

The SRC has spent every last cent of YOUR money.

S M f t l H A N O 6 0 0 K m S t M & i W f a O t t f t N M O M

HOW TO W R tft A F t m T * R t

5. The thousand word feature that people actually READ

FEATURE WRITING

Some perfectly harmless, gentle souls - the sort your mother would approve of - w ill, without a trace of remorse, in flic t the most savage mental torture 6n all foolish enough to read the features they write. Every paper has its dud articles, but it 's the feature pages that attract them most. Reading a turgid news story of twelve paragraphs can cause temporary amnesia - reading a turgid, jargon-1 oaded feature spanning fifty or sixty paragraphs, can (statistics prove) in flic t no re damage than half an hour of television.

The tragedy of i t all is that the feature pages are the big-status pages of any carrpus paper, attracting the intellectual writers. And no matter how d«fling the evidence to the contrary, all of us know, deep down, that we are intellectuals of stature. It is therefore a mite surprising to us to find that readers so often do not share this opinion.

The truth is that i t 's awfully hard to write a good feature. You have to gather together so many facts, come up with so many illuminating ideas, collect i t all together in such a tempting parcel that so many people who would so much rather be reading something so much less taxing, s t i l l find themselves unable to drag themselves away from your spell.

That said, here are a few tips for those who haven't already fled in terror from the task ahead :

1. WHAT IS A FEATURE , MUMMY ?

At a student editors' conference I once attended, one puzzled Afrikaans speaker got up to ask the English students : "What is a feature ?"The question rather summed up the difference of approach of the two types of white campus newspapers. Tne Afrikaans speakers believe that the function of their papers is to report student affairs. Politics has crept into their pages a l i t t le more lately, but is dealt with in a bland and non-partisan manner. Feature pages are near non-existent. To English student papers, reporting student affairs is only half the function of their newspapers - the other function is to act as an alternative media

to the commercial press. The commercial press, because i t needs to survive in the market, must softpedal stories which may antagonise the middle-of-the-road white readers who make up the bulk of its audience.The student press, operating on a subsidy from the SRC, in a non-conpetitive situation, has no such problems. Therefore i t can discuss issues not raised elsewhere, and indeed, i t gives the only synpathetic coverage anywhere in South Africa to feminism, to discussions of the link between capital and apartheid, to environmental issues and to politics le ft of the Progressive Federal Party. These matters are discussed in lengthy, and frequently highly academic analytical articles. Their purpose is a crusading one : to open the eyes of people,whose customary reading diet is Darling magazine, to the problems of the world around them.

PROMISES, PROMISES

When I was editor of a student paper, I was promised scores of features every morning and every afternoon by dedicated social reformers eager to expose this or that vice. I always gave such people the benefit of the doubt : I assumed they were lying. The truth is that it 's awfully easy to promise a feature, but sitting down to write i t can be a grind I t invol ves plenty of research and plenty of thought, not to irention "plenty of polishing of the final version. The moral of this sad tale is : I f you promise your editor a feature, deliver i t . Unwritten features convert no-one.

THE RIGHT PLACE, THE RIGHT TIME

Subject matter for features tends to be chosen on such purely arbitrajygrounds as, for exanple, that the features editor has just read a book"on the subject, or someone handed in an unsolicited story so i t mightas well be used. There is a more useful criterion to consider :topicality. On the day a big miners' strike bursts into the dailypaper headlines, people are not going to be terribly interested to readan article on the pros and cons of abortions. But you may be able topersuade them to read a background piece on migrant labour and the minesOr an article contrasting the liberal public utterances of mine ownerswith the actual conditions they provide black enployees. I f you linkthese up with some current .strike news, you will have done yourreaders a service by explaining what lies behind the event - somethingthe commercial press won't do in any thorough-going way. Similarly,1, someone hands in a feature on abortion, hold onto i t until abortionscome into the news. The writer may have to wait a while before he seeshis wonc in print, but at least he 'll know i t stands a chance of beina read. 3Take a l i t t le more time when dreaming up your feature subject matter hen t °Pen tte pages of present day student papers, I find just tie*

1 i n just the same way as my own contemporarieshandled them five years ago : Censorship, security laws, the liberal university, course reform, women's rights, poverty in the homelands.I m not denying that every one of these s t i l l remains a major issue ; im just suggesting that there may be other ways of looking at them mere are so many current issues a student paper could profitably examine : Gerrie Coetzee as symbol of white South Africa's fantasy revenge on a hostile outside world ; white siege consciousness and we rise of all those dozens of new security companies ; the politics

o f soccer violence ; the Soweto booze boycotts ; the faction wars in Mcinqa in Natal ; pun tan white South Africa and the Nnabatho casinos ; the forged pass rackets in black areas ; the taxi gang wars ; and so on.

4- PUTTING PEN TO PAPERLet's look at the problem before you : you have collected an enormous nunber of facts which must be ordered in sore way which grabs the attention of people who don't really want to know those facts. To do this, you employ many of the techniques you picked up in news writing - using active, not passive sentences, tightening up your prose to leave out irrelevant words, putting your most interesting points at the top to tempt the reader, and so on. But there are a few other techniques you should also add to your repertoire :

(a) SHORT 'N SWEETVirtually all student paper features are several thousand words long. Only the most courageous readers can look at all those long columns of grey type and unflinchingly plunge into reading them. For the more fainthearted majority, two cone-on techniques are required : F irs tly , discipline your writing, leave out anything that is not immediately relevant, make sure you aren't repeating in paragraph 37 what you said in paragraph 6. Secondly, i f the story s t i l l remains too long for human consumption, chop i t into sub­stories. The late Lord Beaverbrook, the Fleet Street press tycoon, made i t a standing rule on all the papers he owned, that no feature could exceed 700 words in length. Beaverbrook was wrong on most issues, but there he had a point. I f a feature is chopped up into shorter subsections, both the writer and the reader find it easier to keep all the complex sub-issues apart in their minds, and the page, broken into sections, is more appetising to read. Take a look at how Time Magazine and Newsweek, who run features over half a dozen pages at a time, break up their stories to see what I mean.

(b) 1HWB -SUCKSIt works out fine to present a series of abstract arguments to your philosophy lecturer - that's what he expects of you. It works rather less well as journalism. People read newspapers with the built-in preconception that they will tell them some new facts about the world outside. When no such facts are forthcoming, the reader turns the page. Therefore, i f you want to present an abstract argument rather than concrete research, you must indulge in a l i t t le trickery. Every few paragraphs you should present some fact or anecdote or statistic to support your argument. These facts may do nothing for bolstering the logic of your argument, but to the reader they act as solid stepping stones through the conplex vortexes of your theorising.Be concrete. F ill your stories with men and women and dogs and fleas and pots and pans and corpses and washing lines. Every abstraction can be related to something in the real world. And i f you are stuck for finding good concrete examples, then do a l i t t le inventing; bring in Martians and desert islands and talking grasshoppers or anything else that might flesh out your theories. For example :

I f a Martian were to land on earth, he might have great d ifficulty working out the cotiplex nuances of the Imnorality Act. Sut then the Act does tend to be rather harsh on green men. They can't marry anyone at a ll.

THE GE RATI ONOne topic of permanent fascination to every newspaper reader is ___himself. So i f you want to reach that reader, jimp on the self- admiration bandwagon. Wherever possible, latch your features onto what they mean to your readers : The new budget and the student ; contraception and the student ; the exam system and you ; i f YOU were black, female and penniless, then this is how YOU would feel ___

IT'S STORY TIFC, KIDSEver since our firs t Noddy book, we've all found i t easier to assimilate information presented in narrative form. Stories have colour, excitement and human drama, and we can't resist reading to the end to find out "what happened.” Make use of this technique. Wherever possible, kick off your stories with a brief human interest narrative, then let that lead off into your argument. Let's take a look at this example, written in Drum magazine in the early sixties by a great journalist of the period, Nat Nakasa, and dealing with the kind of story which would go down well in student papers :

Isaac Mokhobo crushed the last bits of a matchstick between his teeth and spat the damage onto his palm. Suddenly, focusing his eyes on my nose, Mokhobo spoke out loud :"How do I know who you are ?"I had just asked him i f he thought i t was safe to run a taxi in Johannesburg. I t seemed to remind him of a string of taximen who had been attacked, killed, robbed by hooligans.Maybe he wondered i f I had been hired to assault him ?You take no chances i f you drive a taxi in Johannesburg.There are plenty hoodlums keen on robbing you, anywhere, anytime. There are also plenty "pirate11 taximen - guys without licences - who would like to put you out of business.All in all , i t ’s one of the most dangerous occupations going, never knowing i f it 's going to be your tum next.I showed Mr. Mokhobo my Press card, and that reassured him.Then he began to talk ___

Let’s look how Nakasa put this story together. The first sentence gives i t atmosphere and colour. The decision to describe Mokhobo chewing the match is not an arbitrary one ; i t gives us a sense of the coarse toughness of the man and inplies latent violence, which ttie second sentence, dealing with his challenge, makes explicit.The conversation leads on with a discussion of backstreet thuggery (violence is always interesting to readers), then leads off into the theme of the story, the taxi gang wars that dominate the townships.

There's only one aspect of the Nakasa technique which I would urge you to resist : he brings himself into his stories. In his case it was acceptable, he was a household name ; you, as a student reporter

are not. It annoys readers, and smacks of self-indulgence, i f you put yourself in your stories. But i f you feel you must - remember never to talk about yourself at the expense of your subject.

(e) DELAYED DROPSThe most common technique for kicking off feature stories is known as the Delayed Drop Intro, a style well worth mastering, for it can also be used on suitable news stories. The delayed drop technique is to start off by saying something provocative or mysterious, then tempting the reader further and further into the story, by only slowly uncloaking its true nature. Here for example, is Muff Andersson of the Sunday Times writing on a subject dear to student papers, censorship :

I f you're thinking of writing an erotic novel which suggests that all Lithuanian Roman Catholics in South Africa engage in wife-swopping, swindling blacks and hurling obscenities at each other - DON'T.Particularly i f the setting is a secret defence establishment.The censors w ill have you on all counts . . . .

Note the technique - piling hyperbole upon hyperbole, for we assume that there are no sane persons running about who would contemplate writing such a book. Note too the way the sentences get progressively shorter as we move towards the punchline. Thereafter the reporter has earned the reader's interest and can get into the story proper a discussion of the many ways one can fall foul of the censor i f ooe only makes the effort.Here's a snappy bit of writing by freelance journalist Kit Miller, which, although not quite the sort of thing student journals are made of, nonetheless demonstrates how far one can get on sheer contrariness :

Mummy's l i t t le boy has the habit of biting the heads off sharks.He also demolishes the occasional building and rips apart the odd van.But Mrs. Mary Kiel won't hear a word said against her Richard, who arrives in South Africa this week with his wife Diane and three young children.Mind you, at 2,3 m tall and weighing 135 kg, with hands that look like two bunches of bananas, not much criticism is thrown his way. For Richard Kiel is better known as "Jaws", the steel toothed arch-enemy of James Bond ___

Relatively few of the kind of topics student feature editors prefer, lend themselves to that sort of tongue-in-cheek treatment. Most are inmensely serious and d ifficu lt to flesh out and humanise. Here is an example by J i l l Mcllraith of the Sunday Times of the low key approach that is sometimes necessary to deal with an awkward topic, in this case, leprosy :

A legend in Pretoria's black townships says that i f a bird flies over the leprosy hospital at Westfort, its wings fa ll off.Such fears and misconceptions make the daily task of doctors and leprosy field workers that much more d ifficu lt.

r

Leprosy does s t i l l exist. But i t is not the horrific disease that so many think i t to be, their imaginations filled with distorted Biblical images of broken and tragic human beings.

(f) WHATEVER NEXT ?Once you've kicked your feature off with an impact grabbing intro, i t 's time to move into the realm of hard fact. Use the same techniques for ordering your material tnat you would use for a news story : wfta/e you describe incidents that move through time, describe chron3^^fcally, where you describe anything else, describe in order of importance. Keep quotes, people and facts separate - don't mention a name then return to i t forty paragraphs later and expect people to remenber whom you are talking about.I f you simply cannot avoid using one person in several different parts of the story, then use handles to gently remind the reader who this person is :

^ I f for example in paragraph three you had :

Mr. Buffy du Toit, a fireman, placidly picked his nose and watched as the building went up in flames. "I just love to see f ire ", he murmured.

___ then when in paragraph 25 he re-appears, you must re-introducehin in such a way as to remind the reader who he is :

Buffy the fireman had stopped picking his nose and looked almost worried : "I think something odd may be going on", he said, eye­ing the giant Martian spacecraft ...

By using only the firs t name instead of the customary full name,*ie inply that we have met this character before. And the referencedto nose-picking reminds us just where that was.

(g) THE STING IN THE TAILNews stories are allowed to gently fizzle out in their closing paragraphs. The reason has to do with production problems - a nunber of news stories have to be crammed into a page of finite size in a very shor.t period of time. Tnerefore i t is preferred i f the last few paragraphs are expendable, so that they can be cut off i f necessary. Feature writers, on the other hand, enjoy certain privileges. A feature is usually the only story on the page and there's plenty of time to lay i t out. For this reason, feature writers are encouraged to end their stories on a high note. Let's take this example, by a famous British war correspondent of the sixties, Nicholas Tomalin, writing about the Vietnam war. The stor^ starts with a coolly understated intro :

After a light lunch last Wednesday, General James F. Hollingworth, of Big Red One, took off in his personal helicopter and killed more Vietnamese than all the troops he commanded.

___ and it ends off on a quote by the General that brings us backto the theme of the intro :

"There's no better way to fight than goin' out to shoot VC's.An' there's nothin' I love better than k ill in ' 'Cong. No, s ir ."

(h) THE RAPTUHSNew feature writers are sometimes so keen to inpress that one has to wade through syrupy seas of metaphors and adjectives to get to the story. Adjectival diarrhoea may pull in the patrons of romantic novels, but i t grates as journalism. I f you choose your nouns specifically enough, there's no need to swaddle them in adjectives. Take this example of verbal hooliganism from a student paper :

Only ten years ago, Plettenberg Bay consisted of a cluster of pictvwsque villas built into a steep c l i f f , looking out over miles and miles of white, hot beaches merging into the foaming blue seas of the Cape. As a child, how I remenber the rough, boisterous surf, the wholesome lunches brought from the wooden beach hut and the openness of the place !Disdaining the hotel (even in those days) we stayed at the caravan park bordering a lush lagoon with a rickety wooden bridge. .

I ‘ve only seen the syrup and g litte r technique work once - in a b rillian t parody by Stanley Shivas in the Sunday Times, where he described an interview he had with the High Priestess of Mush, Barbara Cartland :

Her vibrant red lips touched my cheek like a moth, our hands brushed but fleetingly and I caught a faint whiff of her maddeningly elusive perfume as we stood together in the great hall, a shaft of late auturm sunlight striking her hair.And suddenly she was gone. Only the echoes of our meeting lingered and I wondered i f I would ever see her again.I'm sorry about all that, but meeting the Queen of Love is an affecting experience ___

5. THE FINAL SOLUTION

The moment you finish a news story, your firs t duty is to bound athletically towards the news editor's office clutching your contribution to literature. Feature writers can conduct their lives in a slightly more leisurely manner. The moment you finish a feature, put i t aside for the night. Pick i t up again the next morning and pretend you are reading something you have never set eyes on before. Be quite ruthless with yourself. Strike out every tautology, every unnecessary side-issue. Ask yourself i f you would willingly read that story yourself. I f not, rewrite it . The extra tine you spend polishing and rewriting will gain you countless extra readers. And remember, there's no better feeling than to have a total stranger walk up to you and say : " I really liked the feature you did thi s week."

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S O H B B A S I C P R I N C I P L E S P O R W R I T I N G S K I L L S

T h e e x a m p l e s b e l o w are d r a w n f r o m a c o m m u n i t y n e w s p a p e r .

1. U s * S h o r t Wor ds.

W R O N G > T h a m e e t i n g c o n c l u d e d w i t h a r e s o l u t i o n c a l l i n g t o r t h a r a l a a s e of el l p o l i t i c a l p r i s o n e r s .

R I G H T t T h a m e e t i n g e n d e d w i t h a r o s o l u t l o n c a l l i n g f o r t h a r e l e a s e of al l p o l i t i c a l p r i s o n e r s .

2. U s e S h o r t S e n t e n c e s .

WRO N G i In f u t u r e th e N a t i o n a l H o u s i n g C o m m i s s i o n ' * f u n d s w i l l be u s e d to s e r v i c e b u i l d i n g p l o t s , h o u s s t h e a g e d , p e n s i o n e r s a n d o t h e r n e s d y per s o n s , s e l f - h e l p a n d s e l f - b u l l d l n g p r o j e c t s , an d f or t h o s e e a r n i n g less t han R150 p e r m o n t h .

RIG H T i In f u t u r e the N a t i o n a l H o u s i n g C o m m i s s i o n ' s f u n d s w i l l be u s e d t o s e r v i c e b u l l d t n g p l o t s , a s w e l l a s f o r s e l f - h e l p a n d s e l f - b u l l d l n g projec ts. T h e fu nd s w i l l a l s o b e u s e d to h o u s e the a g e d , p e n s i o n e r s a n d o t h e r n e e d y p e r s o n s . T h o s e e a r n i n g l e s s t h a n R 1 5 0 p e r m o n t h will a l s o b e n e f i t . iE V E N B E T T E R *

In f u t u r e the N a t i o n a l H o u s i n g C o m m i s s i o n w i l l u s e its f u n d s fori* s e r v i c i n g b u i l d i n g p l o t s* s e l f - h e l ^ and s e l f - b u l l d l n g p r o j e c t s* h o u s i n g the a g e d , p e n s i o n e r s a n d o t h e r n e e d y p e r s o n s* t h o s e e a r n i n g l e s s t h a n R 1 5 0 p e r m o n t h .

3. U s e F e w e r W o r d s .

W R O N G t A t t h e h e a r i n g it w a s m a d e c l e a r t h a t t h e p e o p l e o f St. W e n d o l l n s a r e o p p o s e d t o a n y a t t e m p t t o r e m o v e t h e m f r o m t h e area .

R I G H T i A t t h e h e a r i n g It w a s c l e a r t h a t S t W e n d o l l n s p e o p l e o p p o s e a n y a t t e m p t to r e m o v e them.

W R O N G i It w a s p o l ^ W s d o u t t h a t t h e St. W e n d o l i n s c o m m u n i t y Is a h a p p y a n d s e t t l e d o n e w i t h m o s t o f th e p e o p l e w o r k i n g n e a r b y . By m o v i n g f r o m t h e a r e a , i n c r e a s e d t r a n s p o r t c o s t s a n d r e n t a l s , d i s r u p t i o n o f t h e s t u d e n t s e d u c a t i o n a n d a b r e a k u p o f f a m i l y l i f e w o u l d b e e x p e r i e n c e d .

R I G H T t I t w a s p o i n t e d o u t t h a t St. W e n d o l l n s c o m m u n i t y Is h a p p y a n d s e t t l e d . M o s t p e o p l e w o r k n e a r b y . R e m o v a l w o u l d m e a n h i g h e r r e n t s a n d t r a n s p o r t c o s t s . E d u c a t i o n w o u l d a l s o b e d i s r u p t e d , a n d f a m i l i e s b r o k e n up.

4. D o n ' t U s e J a r g o n .

W R O N G i M r D e n n i s R a m b a l l w a s s u c c e s s f u l In C o u r t w h e n t h e M a g i s t r a t e r u l e d that, d e s p i t e h i s i n c o r r e c t a p p l i c a t i o n , h e w a s e n t i t l e d t o h i s l i c e n c e . M r R a m b a l l h a s t o s u b m i t a n e w a p p l i c a t i o n w i t h i n 21 d a y s a f t e r w h i c h h i e l i c e n c e w i l l b e g r a n t e d .

R I G H T i M r L'ennls R a m b a l l h a s w o n h i s c o u r t a c t i o n t o g e t a l i c e n c e . T h e m a g i s t r a t e s a i d M r R a m b a l l h a d a r i g h t t o a l i c e n c e , a l t h o u g h h e h a d m a d e m i s t a k e s In a p p l y i n g f o r It. H r R a m b a l l w i l l g e t h i s l i c e n c e If h e a p p l i e s a g a i n In t h e n e x t t h r e e w e e k s .

5. U s e P o s i t i v e W o r d i n g .

W R O N G i T h e d e c i s i o n t o s h u t d o w n t h e S R C a t t h e U n i v e r s i t y o f D u r b a n - W e s t v l l l e Is n o t g o i n g by u n c h a l l e n g e d b y t h e s t u d e n t s .

RI G H T i S t u d e n t s ar e c h a l l e n g i n g t h e d e c i s i o n t o s h u t d o w n t h e S R C at t h e U n i v e r s i t y of D u r b a n - W e s t v l l l e .

6. U s e A c t i v e r a t h e r t h a n P a s s i v e P o m .

W R O N G i M o r e t h a n 90 0 a f f i d a v i t s a n d s i g n e d s t a t e m e n t s w e r e a l s o h a n d e d o v e r t o t h e G r o u p A r e a s B o a r d b y t h e C h a t s w o r t h H o u s i n g C o m m i t t e e . i j

R I G H T i T h e C h a t s w o r t h H o u s i n g C o m m i t t e e h a n d e d o v e r m o r e t h a n 900 a f f i d a v i t s a n d s i g n e d s t a t e m e n t s t o t h e G r o u p A r e a s Bo ard.

7. 'Use P r e s e n t T e n s e .

W R O N G i W o r k e r s at a J a c o b s f a c t o r y h a v e s a i d t h a t s l o w i n g d o w n p r o d u c t i o n w a s a b e t t e r w e a p o n t h a n a s t r i k e In t h e i r d i s p u t e w i t h t h e i r b o s s e s . iR I G H T i W o r k e r s a t a J a c o b s f a c t o r y t s a y t h a t s l o w i n g d o w n p r o d u c t i o n Is a b e t t e r w e a p o n t h a n a s t r i k e In t h e i r d i s p u t e w i t h t h e i r b o s s e s .

*. • r8. U s e C o n c r e t e W o r d s a n d M e a n i n g s .

W R O N O i T h * O r a y t o w n C o u n c i l c a m * u n d e r f i r * f o r lt a h i m A n g o f th* w h o l e af'air.

R I G H T » T h * Grey's o w n C a u n c I ii c a m * u n d e r f i r * f o r i t s h a n d l l n a o f Mr*. K d a b a’s ev i c t i o n ,

W R O N G j E x c e l l e n t p a p e r s w e r e d e l i v e r e d by Dr F a r o u k M e e r of th e Na tal In di a n C o n g r e s s o n the P r e s i d e n t s C o u n c i l ' s p r o p o s a l s a n d A d v o c a t e P l u s L a n g a o n t h e K o o r n h o f B i l l s . M r Y u n u s M o h a m e d sp oke o n the n e e d for an d f u n c t i o n s of the b r a n c h e s .

RIGHT. Dr F a r o u k’ M e e r of the N a t a l I n d i a n C o n g r e s s a n a l y s e d the P r e s i d e n t n C o u n c i l , p r o p o s a l s a n d s a i d t h e y w e r e a i m e d at c o n f u s i n g an d d i v i d i n g r e s i s t a n c e . A d v o c a t e P i u s L a n g a s a i d the K o o r n h o f B i l l s w e r e an a t t e m p t to w o r s e n the p a s s laws. M r j y u n u s M o h a m e d s a i d the o r g a n i s a t i o n n e e d e d b r a n c h e s in d i s t a n t a r e a s to I n c r e a s e t h * p a r t i c i p a t i o n o f m e m b e r s w h o l i v e d f a r a w a y . T h e b r a n c h e s w o u l d a l s o h e l p t o b r i n g m o r e p e o p l e I n t o d e c i s i o n - ffiA It 1 n g •

» R O N G ! B o t h th e o r g a n i s a t i o n s t h a t c o n v e n e d t h * w o r k s h o p w a r * Sorn o u t o f s i m i l a r c i r c u m s t a n c e s .

U G H T t B o t h o r g a n l s a t I o n s t h a t c o n v e n e d t h e w o r k s h o p w e r e b o r n >ut of the s m u g g l e for r e n t s that p e o p l e c a n a f f o r d .

t. Spell out th* facta.IRONCs P e o p l e In t h e a r e a s u f f e r f r o m h i g h r e n t s a n d t r a n s p o r t n c r e a s e s w h i c h they c a n n o t p a y o n t h e i r l o w wag es.

IG HTt P e o p l e in t h e a r e a s u f f e r f r o m r e n t s o f R 6 0 a m o n t h f o r a w o - r o o m e d h o u s e . T r a n s p o r t c o s t s h a v e g o n e u p f r o m 50 t o 7 5 a n t * a roun<J tr i p . T h e p e o p l e c a n n o t p a y t h i s o n t h e i r W a g e s h t c h ar e a r o u n d R 1 4 0 a m o n t h .

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IHTRODUCT I Oil TO HEWS. FEATURES, COMMENT

I. A message can be written 1n many ways. For example, a poem

fs different to a newspaper story. Doth are different In their

style as compared to a political pamphlet or the blble.

Z. In other words, there ere different styles of writing - different

packages that '1nforma11 on can be expressed In. Each style adds

some extra meaning to the content that It communicates. A pamphlet

writing style adds a dramatic quality to a message about, for

example, rents, A rews story on rents Is different - news writing

style adds a quality of credibility and realism as well as objectivity

to the message.

Pamphlet style of writing .

Style depends here on what the main purpose of the pamphlet is going

to be. An educational pamphlet will be written In a more serious an d

sober tone than a mobilising one. Both pamphlets however will be written

In a way that is very easy for readers to absorb. For example, there

will not be long drawn out sections, but rather a long message will be

divided 1n small and short parts, each with only a few Ideas. The public

will not read,a pamphlet that Is full of never-ending words.

An educational pamphlet should be written a little bit like a feature

article (see below), although It should be broken Into separate parts

that can be presented In different sections and subsections In the design

of the pamphlet. It should also be shorter than a feature article'.

Rather put In less content that the public will read, than cram In so

much content that the pamphlet looks H k e the page of a book. Pamphlets

cannot have too many words on them because otherwise they begin to look

grey and uninteresting. People will not read such a publication. A

book Is different - people expect to read a lot of grey text, but ^ot

with a pamphlet. An educational pamphlet also needs a topical Intro­

duction.

A mobilising pamphlet has the following style of writing:

9 short, sharp sentences

# many paragraphs

0 emotional phrases and adjectives

9 slogan I s 11c

Newspaper and newsletter style of writing

Newspapers have three basic styles of writing: news, features and

editorial comment. These differ not only In style, but also in terms

of the type of message content that they usually communicate. F o r - '",

example, news gives the facts, features explain the facts, and editorials

comment on them. Take a message about a strike:

0 news tells you who was Involved, what it was about, where and

when it took place. I.e. news has an Informational role.

0 features tell you why and how the strike took place. I.e. features

have an educa 11onaI role.

9 editorials say what was right and wrong about the strike, place

blame on certain parties, suggest directions for the future. 1e.

editorials have a persuasive, strategislng role. They also often

have a consclentlzlng and politicising role.

There Is another type of writing style 1n newspapers separate from*

the above which Is the human interest story style. , Here the role of

such stories Is entertaining - these stories are usually news stories

that are humourous or bizarre, and which are specially written in a

light-hearted joking style.

It follows from the role of these types of stories, that news will

be written In a factual style, features will be Interpretative and

analytical and historical, editorials will be argumentative and moralising,

and human Interest Items will be 1n a story-telling style.

News

News style to suit its role Is:

a. Impersona 1: D o n’t write "I saw 50 workers marching when

Just say "50 workers marched This Is reporting style,

b • Impartial : A news story does not explicitly comment on the facts.

It lets the facts speak for themselves. Don't say "A successful

meeting was held and all enjoyed themselves*. Rather write in facts

about how many people came and participated and let the reader concludc

from this that the meeting was successful and people enjoyed themselves.

News 1s a factual report, and your own opinions should not show In

It. Of course, your own opinion Is In It In the way that you have

arranged the facts • hut this It hidden, Your opinion Is present In

the way you have chosen the story as Important In the first place,

and It is In the people you have chosen 'to quote. B u t T t Is not

present in the form of comments or evaluations by you the writer.

c . . 5 u £ t m o n j : news has quotations in it. It reports the words of

speakers. The reader should read the news story as if the speaker

was speaking directly to him/her. The fact that there is you, the

writer, between the two parties should be invisible. Quotations

make a news story seem very realistic, i.e. as an account of reality

that Is unbiased and credible. It is not the writer speaking, but

outside people. Quotations may be direct or indirect.

d. News Is written like an upside-down t r i a n g l e . In a news story,

the most important essentials of the information go at the top.

The basic Information about who, what, where and when are given at

the start. The details are given later. The why and how a r e usually

given In separate stories (features), or later In the story. News

starts with a bang and ends w i t h a whimper. The climax conies first,

unlike a human interest story or any story-telling story. For instance,

the tale about little Red Riding Hood builds up to the climax. A news

S t o r y about little Red Riding Mood would begin by saying “A young girl,

little Red Riding Mood, had a narrow escape today when the person she

thought was her grandmother turned out to be a vicious wolf." So news

is not chronological: the outcome of an event, what's newest and most

recent, comes first. The historical build up is left or later in the

S t o r y , or,for a feature s t o r y .

News begins with an "intro" - an introduction sentence that Is

less than 30 words, but which has the basic points of t h ^ w h o , what,

where and when of the story.

feature writing sty 1 e

Features not only fulfill a different roll to news stories, they are

also written in a different style. They are longer. They are written

with adjectives that give colour and atmosphere and thereby create

i picture. A news story on a strike would perhaps mention that workers

sang songs. A feature would describe the singing.

Features are educational, therefore they tend to use phrases like *

^ I s poverty, workers had no option ..." or "the reason why.*. &

Features are often tied to news stories or recent news events. So

the Information in a feature story should not duplicate or repeat

that in a news story elsewhere in the publication, or which Is well-

known. features are to exp 11 1n information, not to give it. Features

can, however, often benefit by being made relevant and topical in

terms of news issues. These should not be left out of the story

altogether. A feature about education In SA (an Issue) should me ntion

C 8 8 S U U e ySa Ifif es are educational, they try to explain the facts and'

draw wider principles out of them. For this reason, people are

quoted for symbolic purposes - ie. for the more significant and

general relevance of what they say, rather than for any specific

concrete Information. People are quoted for who they represent, eg.

a typical worker, rather than specific person ality (eg. Hr Sipho Gumede)

The structure of a feature is unlike a news story. It does not

necessarily have all the Important information at the top. What Is

Important howevor is that It should flow and that the start of the

story is intere sting enough for a reader to want to read further.

Quite often a feature story has a chronological unfolding of events

somewhere in it. |

Edl torlals

Editorials are arguments about why certain things are good or bad,

or about what course of action should be followed. Usually they

take one Issue as the main theme, and link this to other issues

to make a point. For examples, the rise of GST could be c o m m ented on

and could be linked to State expenditure on military items.

Editorials must be logical arguments: each point must link on

with the next Into a coherent whole.

Editorials often use moralistic words - ’disgusting wages',

'highly successful campaign', etc.

Editorials are seldom read by people In comparison to news

stories. For this reason, editorials should try to be more than

a place where an editorial comment can be made. Some sort of insight

(such as linking up events), and even some new Information or some

history, can liven up an editorial and take it beyond being the rave

of some people who are keen to sound off and tell the world what

everyone else should be doing.

Editorials often assume a certain identity In which name they

speak. They often speak of "we" - 1e. implying that they and the

reader and the general public are one. rln order to reinforce this,

they often define the "we" In relation to a "them" who Is In opposition

t o " u s " .

media and ;| resource services LI

AM A R S

F r w w i y I I a v m . f l ) f K o rte S l r n l , O raam fo n tv ln . T r l . J J f -7 6 1 1

SOHB BASIC PRINCIPLES POR HRITING SKILLS

The example* below art drawn from a community newspaper.

1. Use Short Words.

WRONGi Th# meeting concluded with a resolution c a l li ng for the release of -11 political prisoners.

RIGHT! The meeting ended with a resolution c a l l i n g for the release of all political prisoners.

2. Use Short Sentences.

WRONGi In future the National Housing Commission's funds will be used to service building plots, house the aged, pensioners and other needy persons, self-help and self-building projects, and for those earning less than R1S0 per month.

RIGHTi In future the National Housing Commission's funds will be used to service building plots, as well as for s e l f- he lp and self-bulldlng projects. The funds will also be used to house the aged, pensioners and other needy persons. Those earning leas than R1S0 per month will also benefit.

* iEVEN SETTER!

In future the National Housing Commission will use its funds fori* servicing building plots* self-hel? and self-bulldlng projects* housing the aged, pensioners and other needy persons* those earning less than R150 per month.

3. Use Fewer Word®.

WRONGi At the hearing it was made c l e a r that the people of St. Wendolins are opposed to any attempt to remove them from the area.

RIGHTi At the hearing it was c lear that St Wendolins people oppose any attempt to remove them.

WRONGi It was pol^reed out that the St. Wendolins community Is a happy and settled one with most of the people working nearby. By moving from the area, increasod transport costs and rentals, disruption of the students education and a braak up of family life would be experienced.

RIGHTi It was pointed out that St. Wendoltns community Is happy and settled. Most people work nearby. Removal would mean higher rents and transport costs. Education would al s o be disrupted, and families broken up.

4. Don't Use Jargon.

WRONGi Mr Dennis Ramball was successful In Court when the Magistrate ruled that, despite his Incorrect application, he was e n t i t l e d to his licence. Mr R a m b a l l has to su bm it a n e w application within 21 days after which his licence w i l l be granted.

RIGHTi Mr uennls Ramball has won his court actton to get a licence. The magistrate said Mr Ramball had a right to a licence, although he had made mistakes in applying for It. Mr Ramball wil l get his licence if he spplies again In the next three weeks.

S. Use Positive Wording.

WRONGi The decision to shut down the A c . . the U ni ve r s i t y of Durban-Westvllle is not going by unchallenged by the students.

RIGHTi Students are challenging the decision to shut down the SRC at the University of Durban-Westvllle.

(. Use Active rather than Passive Pons.

WRONGi More than 900 affidavits and signed statements were also handed o ve r to the Group Areas Board by the Chatsworth Housing Committee. i ^

RIGHTi The Chatsworth Housing Committee (landed over more than 900 affidavits and signed statements to the Group Areas Board.

7. Use Present Tense.

WRONGi Workers at a Jacobs factory have said that slowing down production was a better weapon than a strike In their dispute with their bosses. IRIGHTi W o r k e r s at a Jacob's f a c t o r y («ay that s l o w i n g d o w n production is a better weapon than a strike In their dispute with their bosses.

2

i

1<r i

w r o n g i The Gray town Council came under f1 ra for Its hanmPlna of the whole af'air.

RIGHT* The Gra y :o m - Council c a m e under fire for It* handllncj of Mrs. Kdaba’s eviction.

WRONG* excellent papers were delivered by Dr Parouk Hear of the Natal Indian Congress on the Presidents Council's proposals and Advocate Plus Langa on the Koornhof Bills. Mr Yunus Mohamed spoke on the need for and functions of the branches.

RIGHTi Dr Parouk Meer of the Natal Indian Congress analysed the Presidents Council, proposals and said they were aimed at confusing and dividing resistance. Advocate Plus Langa said the Koornhof Bills were an attempt to worsen the pass laws. Mrjyunus Mohamed said the organisation needed branches In distant areas to Increase the participation of members who lived far away. The branches would also help to bring more people Into decision- ri a k 1 ng •

MRONGt Both the organisations that convened the workshop were born out of similar circumstances.

RIGHT) Both organisations that convened the workshop were born jut of the sv.ugg1* for rents that people can afford.

». Spall out the facts.

fRONGt People In the area suffer from high rants and transport ncreases which they cannot p a y on their low wages.

IIGHTt People In the area suffer from rents of R60 a month for a wo-roomed house. Transport costs have gone up from 50 to 75 :*nts a rouncj trip. The people cannot pay this on their Waaes hlch are around R140 a month.

IN TRO DUC TIO N TO HEWS, FEATURES, COMMENT

I. A message can be wri tte n in many ways. For example , a poem

Is different to a ne wsp ape r *tory. (loth are d iff ere nt In their

style as compa red to a political pa m p h l e t or the blble.

I. In other words, there are di ffe ren t styles of w r i t i n g - d i f f e r e n t

packages that '1n f o r m a 1 1 on can be e x p r e s s e d In. Each style adds

some extra mean ing to the content that It c o m m u n i c a t e s . A pa m p h l e t

wr iting style adds a dra mat ic q u a l i t y to a m e s sag e about, for

example, rents. A rews story on rents Is d i f f e r e n t - news w r i t i n g

style adds a quali ty of c r e d i b i l i t y and r e a l i s m as well as o b j e c t i v i t y

to the message.

Pamphlet style of w r i t i n g .

Style depends here on what the main purp ose of the pamp hle t Is goi ng

to be. An educational pam phlet will be w r i t t e n In a mor e serious aiul

sober tone than a mo bil i s i n g one. Doth p am phl ets howev er will be wri tte n

In a way that Is very easy for readers to absorb. For exam ple , there

will not be long drawn out sections, but rather a long m e s s a g e will be

divided In small and short parts, each wit h only a few Ideas. The public

will not read,a pamph let that Is full of n e v e r - e n d i n g words.

An educationa l pamp hle t should be w r itte n a little bit like a fea tur e

article (see below), althoug h it should be bro ken into separ ate parts

that can be p rese nte d In dif fe re nt secti ons and sub s e c t i o n s In the design

of the pamphlet. It should also be s h o rter than a fea ture article'.

Rather put in less conte nt that the public will read, than c ra m In so

much content that the pam phl et looks like the page of a book. Pamphl ets

cannot have too many words on them bec au se o t h e r w i s e they begin to look

grey and uni nte res tin g. People will not read such a p u b l i c a t i o n . A

book Is d iff ere nt * people expect to read a lot of grey text, but mot

with a pamphlet. An edu cat ion al pamp hle t also needs a topical I n t r o ­

duction.

A mobilisi ng pamph let has the followi ng style of wri ti ng:

9 short, sharp sentences

• many paragraph!0 emotional phrases and adj ect ive s

9 sloganlstlc

N e w s p a p e r and n e w s l e t t e r style of w r i t i n g

N e w s pa per s have three basic styles of wr i t i n g : news, features and

editor ial com men t. These dif f e r not only In style, but also In terms

of the type of m e s s a g e c o n te nt that they u s u al ly com mu ni cat e. For''",

example, news gives the facts, fea tur es exp lai n the facts, and ed ito ria ls

c o m me nt on them. Take a m e s s a g e about a strike:

9 newt tell* you who wai Inv olved, what It was about, whe re and

when It took place. I.e. news has an In fo rmat ion al role.

0 features tell you why and how the strike took place, I.e. featu re*

have an e duca 1 1 o n a 1 role.

9 ed i t o r i a l * say what was rig ht and wr ong about the strike, place

blame on c e rta in par ti es, sug ges t d i r e c t i o n s for the future, le.

ed i t o r i a l s have a p e r sua siv e, str ate g l s i n g role. They also often

have a c o n s c l e n t l z i n g and p o l i t i c i s i n g role.

There Is a n o t h e r type of w r i t i n g style In n e w s pap er* sep arate from

the above wh ich Is the human Int er es t story ttyle. , Here the role of

such stori es is e n t e r t a i n i ng - these s.torie* are u s u a l l y news stories

that are hu mo u r o u s or bl? arr e, and whi ch are spe ci al ly w r i tt en in a

l i g h t - h e a r t e d jok ing style.

It follows from the role of these types of stories, that news will

be w r i t t e n In a factual style, features will be in te r p r e t a t i v e and

anal yti cal and his t o r i c a l , ed i t o r i a l s will be a r g u m e n t a t i v e and mo ral isi ng,

and human interest Items will be in a i t o r y - t c l 1 ing style.

New*

News style to suit Its role Is:

*• Im p e r s o n a 1 : Don't wri te "I saw 50 w o rke rs m a r c h i n g when

Just say "50 work er* m a r c h e d This I* r ep or tin g style.

**• I m p a r t i a l ; A news story doe* not ex p l i c i t l y com me nt on the facts.

It lets the facts speak for thems elv es. Don't say "A successful

m e e t i n g wa* held and all e n joye d them selv es" . Rather write In fact*

abou t how m any people came and p a r t i c i p a t e d and let the reader co n c l u d e

from this that the m e e t i n g was suc ces sfu l and people enj oye d themselv es.

News Is a factual rep ort, and y our own opin io ns should not show in

it. Of cou rie , you r own o p i n i o n it in It in the way that you hav e

arr a n g e d the fact* • hut thli ti hid den, your opin ion If pre tent In

the way you have cho s e n the story as Imp ortant In the first place,

and it is In the p e o p l e you have c h o s e n to q u o t e . Out It Is not

p r e s e n t in the form of c o m m e n t s or e v a l u a t i o n s by you the w r i t e r ,

c .. Q u o t a t I o n s : news has q u o t a t i o n s 1n It. It r e p o r t s the w o r d s of

speaker s. The re a d e r s h o u l d read the n ew s st o r y as If the s p e a k e r

was s p e a k i n g d i r e c t l y to h i m / h e r . The fact that there Is y o u , the

wr ite r, b e t w e e n the two p a r t i e s s h o u l d be I n v i s i b l e . Q u o t a t i o n s

make a news story seem ver y r e a l i s t i c , i.e. as an a c c o u n t of r e a l i t y

that Is u n b i a s e d and c r e d i b l e . It Is not the w r i t e r s p e a k i n g , but

o u t s i d e peop le. Q u o t a t i o n s ma y be d i r e c t or Ind ir e c t .

d> — ws 11 like an u p s i d e - d o w n t r i a n g l e . In a news sto ry,

the mos t I mp ort ant e s s e n t i a l s of the I n f o r m a t i o n go at the top.

The basic I n f o r m a t i o n ab o u t who , w h a t , w h e r e and w h e n are gi v e n at

the start. The d e t a i l s are gi v e n later. The w hy and how are u s u a l l y

given 1n se p a r a t e sto ri es ( f e a t u r e s ) , or la te r In the sto ry. News

starts w i t h a bang and ends w i t h a w h i m p e r . The c l i m a x c o m e s first,

un li k e a hum an Int e r e s t st o r y or any s t o r y - t e l l i n g st ory. For I n s t a n c e ,

the tale abou t li ttle Red Ri d i n g H o o d b u i l d s up to the c l i m a x . A news

story about littl e Red Ri d i n g Mood w o u l d b e g i n by s a y i n g "A y o u n g gir l,

little Red R i d i n g Mood, had a n a r r o w e s c a p e t o d a y w h e n the p e r s o n she

thought was her g r a n d m o t h e r tur ned out to be a v i c i o u s w o l f . " So news

1s not c h r o n o l o g i c a l : the o u t c o m e of an e v e n t , w h a t ' s n e w e s t an d most

recent, comes first. The h i s t o r i c a l b u i l d up is left or late r In the

story, o r , f o r a f e at ure story.

News beg i n s w i t h an "Int ro" - an I n t r o d u c t i o n s e n t e n c e that Is

less than 30 word s, but w h i c h has the ba s i c p o i n t s of thoj.who, what ,

wh e r e and w h e n of the story.

F e a t u r e w r i t i n g s t y 1e

F e a t u r e s not only fulfill a d i f f e r e n t rol e to new s s t o r i e s , the y are

a lso w r i t t e n In a d i f f e r e n t style. T hey are l o ng er. T h e y are w r i t t e n

w i t h a d j e c t i v e s that give c o l o u r and a t m o s p h e r e and t h e r e b y c r e a t e

a pi c t u r e . A news stor y on a strik e w o u l d p e r h a p s m e n t i o n that w o r k e r s

sang songs. A feature w o u l d d e s c r i b e the s i n g i n g .

F e a t u r e s are e d u c a t i o n a l , t h e r e f o r e t hey t end to use p h r a s e s like "

°f pov ert y, w o r k e r s had no o p t i o n ..." or "the r e a s o nwhj-.".

F e a t u r e s are of ten tied to news s t o r i e s or r e c e n t n ew s e v e n t s . So

the i n f o r m a t i o n In a f e a t u r e sto ry s h o u l d no t d u p l i c a t e or r e p e a t

that in a news story e l s e w h e r e In the p u b l i c a t i o n , or w h i c h 1s w e l l -

known. Fea t u r e s are to e x p l a i n i n f o r m a t i o n , not to giv e It. F e a t u r e s

can, h o w e v e r , o f t e n b e n e f i t by b e i n g m a d e r e l e v a n t and t o p i c a l in

terms of news i s s ue s. T h e s e s h o u l d n ot be left out of the s t o r y

a l t o g e t h e r . A f e a t u r e ab o u t e d u c a t i o n in SA (an Is sue) s h o u l d m e n t i o n

G S S $ [ ) L e Y m S ^ es are e d u c a t i o n a l , they try to e x p l a i n the fact s and'

d r a w w i d e r p r i n c i p l e s out of them. For this r e a s o n , p e o p l e are

q u o t e d for s y m b o l i c p u r p o s e s - 1e. for the m o r e s i g n i f i c a n t a n d

g e n e r a l r e l e v a n c e of w h a t t hey say, ,rather than for a ny s p e c i f i c

c o n c r e t e i n f o r m a t i o n . P e o p l e are q u o t e d for wh o they r e p r e s e n t , eg.

a t y p ic al1 w o r k e r , r a t h e r than s p e c i f i c p e r s o n a l i t y (eg. H r S l p h o G u a e d e )

The s t r u c t u r e of a f e a t u r e is u n l i k e a ne w s sto r y . It d o e s not

n e c e s s a r i l y h a v e all the I m p o r t a n t I n f o r m a t i o n at the top. W h a t Is

I m p o r t a n t h o w e v e r Is that It s h o u l d f lo w and that the sta rt of the

s t o r y Is i n t e r e s t i n g e n o u g h for a r e a d e r to w a n t to rea d f u r t h e r .

Q u i t e o f t e n a f e a t u r e s t o r y has a c h r o n o l o g i c a l u n f o l d i n g of e v e n t s

s o m e w h e r e in it. |

E d l t o r i a ls

E d i t o r i a l s are a r g u m e n t s a b o u t w h y c e r t a i n t h i n g s are g o o d or bad,

or a b o u t w h a t c o u r s e of a c t i o n s h o u l d be f o l l o w e d . U s u a l l y they

take onfe Issue as the m a i n th eme, and link this to o t h e r is su es

to m a k e a po in t . For e x a m p l e s , the rlsfe of CST c o u l d be c o m m e n t e d on

an d c o u l d be l i n k e d to S t a t e e x p e n d i t u r e on m i l i t a r y items.

E d i t o r i a l s m u s t be l o g i c a l a r g u m e n t s : e a c h p o i n t m us t link on

w i t h the n e x t Into a c o h e r e n t w h o l e .

E d i t o r i a l s o f t e n use m o r a l i s t i c w o r d s - ' d i s g u s t i n g w a g e s ' ,

' h i g h l y s u c c e s s f u l c a m p a i g n ' , etc.

E d i t o r i a l s are s e l d o m r ead by p e o p l e In c o m p a r i s o n to n ews

s t o r i e s . Fo r this r e a s o n , e d i t o r i a l s s h o u l d try to be m o r e than

a p l a c e w h e r e an e d i t o r i a l c o m m e n t ca n be m a d e . Some sort of I n s i g h t

(s uch as l i n k i n g up e v e n t s ) , and e v e n so me n e w I n f o r m a t i o n or some

h i s t o r y , can li ve n up an e d i t o r i a l an d take it b e y o n d b e i n g the r »v#

of s ome p e o p l e w h o are k een to s o u n d off and tell the w o r l d w h a t

e v e r y o n e e l s e s h o u l d be doi n g .

E d i t o r i a l s o f t e n a s s u m e a c e r t a i n i d e n t i t y in w h i c h n a m e the y

sp eak. T h e y o f t e n s p e a k of "we" - le. i m p l y i n g tha t they a nd th*

r e a d e r and the g e n e r a l p u b l i c ar e one . 'In o r d e r to r e i n f o r c e thi s,

they o f t e n d e f i n e the "we" In r e l a t i o n to a " t h e m " wh o Is In o p p o s i t i o n

to " u s”.

SMPU HtNQ&ook m snoeNT PRODUCTION MID DCSIGM

6. If you think it sounds good, make it LOOK good

PRODUCTION AND DESIGN ---------------------The newspaper feature with the most powerful inpact on a reader is the one he is least aware of - the layout. Ask a few students why they read your paper. They will tell you i t is because they identify with your po litics or giggle over your satires or admire the judgement of your film c r it ic or secretly hope to see their own names in prin t. No-one w ill te ll you he reads your paper because he goes crazy about the interplay of Bodoni bold and Uni vers medium typefaces on your pages, not to mention the 2-point colunri rules and the modular text display. Which proves two things. I t proves that your readers are extraordinarily ignorant of what newspapers are all about, and i t proves that they have every right to remain so. For newspapers <ycist to be read, not to be looked at. And the function of layout is to make reading simpler and more enjoyable - no more. Good layout is inv is ib le .

»

Student journalists often have to be convinced of the importance of layout.In my day in student journalism, layout was considered s ligh tly frivolous, i f not to mention bourgeois, and defin itely not RELEVANT. Since anything not relevant was to be despised, the pages we produced took visual tedium to hitherto unimagined heights ; page after page of unbroken grey columns, occasionally topped by tiny apologies for headlines, with the only chinks of light in those prisons of type being purely accidental.

But the truth is that amazing things d£ happen to a reporter's story when his series of scribbled ballpoint notes are converted into lines of type printed on pages together with headlines and photographs. His story can suddenlychange in tone and assume new heights of importance ___ or be deflated intoobscurity.

Let's take a look at the three newspaper examples printed on the next page.The examples (from a book by Harold Evans, Editor of the London Sunday Times, on news photography) deal with a campus situation of the s ix ties, the killing of a student protestor by American guardsmen. The three papers are all using the sane photo and almost the same stories. Yet their treatments could not d iffer more. To the Mirror, the incident is a major news event - important enough to make i t the only story on the page, with the picture its e lf taking up half the space. The huge, partisan headlines make quite clear that the Mirror is not on Nixon's side. To the Express, the story is important enough

Collection Number: AG1977

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