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Against the odds, the opposing sides in a bitter Corran-copyright battle have agreed to bury the hatchet today and resolve the argument without going to court. Lawyers for both sides were up late into the night burning the midnight oil in an effort to reach the unexpected agreement. The case arose when the Evening Reporter printed excerpts from the tell-all autobiography of Jim Corran, the former secretary of defense, in which he spilled the beans on his time in government. Lawyers for Mr. Corran's publishers said that the use of the material, rights for which had been sold to the rival paper the Sunday Monitor, went beyond fair usage and the Evening Reporter had in effect stolen the Monitor's thunder by publishing key revelations two days before their rivals. The Reporter argued that when the facts came to their attention it was in the public interest for them to be published and a war of words ensued in the editorial columns of the two papers. The gloves came off last April when the Monitor and Corran's publishers issued a writ for damages.
Corran's biography initially appeared to ruffle the feathers of his fellow ministers; their irritation was subsequently heightened when it transpired that he had been given the green light to write the autobiography by the Prime Minister. The former minister did receive a slap on the wrist, however, for unguarded remarks about the relationship between the Prime Minister and the heir to the throne.
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accusatory
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Headlines appear in large, bold text shouting out at you from the front page of your newspaper. Designed to be seen from a distance, as you dash past the newsstand, headlines are written - not by the journalist but by the copyeditor - to be quickly decoded, but in a language all their own.
A headline is not like a title a history book like or a documentary. Instead, it is the synopsis of a story or a summation of its first paragraph and this abridgement normally requires breaking a few grammatical rules. The articles 'a' and 'the' are removed, as are conjunctions and forms of the verb 'to be'; the present simple is the most common tense but some future tenses are changed to the infinitive - MINISTER TO BE SACKED. Anything that can be abbreviated is abbreviated: TOP DOC FACES GM HURDLE will be a story about a senior doctor who is confronting a major problem regarding genetically modified foods.
Most of the time headlines take pride in their directness and tell the story straight, or as straight as the editors dare. Sometimes it is necessary to be cautious, particularly if there is doubt over the accuracy of a story. In these cases, copyeditors often phrase their headlines as questions - WHERE ARE WMDs, MR BLAIR? - or as quotations - UN TROOPS "MURDERED" CHILD CLAIM REFUGEES. Both scenarios allow some room for maneuver if the story turns out to be false or misleading.
The stark abbreviation of stories in the form of headlines can sometimes lead to misunderstandings. MILK DRINKERS TURNING TO POWDER, implies only a preference for powdered milk not and unfortunate medical condition brought on by too much consumption of the stuff. And if POLICE BEGIN CAMPAIGN TO RUN DOWN BEGGARS, it is not the start of another zero-tolerance policy; there only intention is to charge people for the misdemeanor. You can find websites devoted to such comical mix-ups - some real, most apocryphal.
Copyeditors don't go out of their way to give the wrong impression, of course. Their primary aim, in the words of Jack Buggit the newspaper proprietor in the novel The Shipping News, is to find the 'beating heart' of the story, something 'punchy'.
"Have a look!" he urges his journalist, pointing out of the window at clouds massing ominously over the sea, "What do you see? Tell me the headline."
"HORIZON FILLS WITH DARK CLOUDS?" the journalist tentatively replies.
"IMMINENT STORM THREATENS VILLAGE", rebuts Bugitt.
"But what if no storm comes?" says the journalist.
Without a pause Bugitt counters, "VILLAGE SPARED FROM DEADLY STORM."
Novelty Proximity Human interest Prominence Timeliness Consequence Controversy
I went into journalism because I felt strongly about what newspapers could do; I believed in the power of journalism to change things - the pen is mightier than the sword, as they say. But the reality can be very different. First of all, it can be very hard work. The day starts early with an editorial meeting where we all talk about what stories we are covering. Although I deal exclusively with social issues for my paper, I'm always interested to hear what my fellow journalists are writing about - make sure we're on the same page.
At the other end of the day there are the deadlines. You can up late into the night, checking the facts, dotting the Is and crossing the Ts. You can spend a long time on a story, chasing up leads, speaking to everybody you can find and then your article is spiked. Or, if your piece is not taken out altogether, then it is heavily edited so that it hardly seems as if you wrote in the first place. But, I'm not precious about my writing, as long as the essential message is there, I'm happy. After all today's newspapers are tomorrow's chip wrappers.
I like writing human interest stories, finding out how big political issues affect people's everyday lives; going out and getting the story straight from the horse's mouth. Last month, I had a lead about a man who had lost his house and family because he was an alcoholic. Hardly, front page news I know, but I wanted to do the story nonetheless and talk about government policy on drinking and licensing laws. My chief editor wasn't so keen; he let me do the research but reading between the lines, I knew he wanted me to drop the story.
People say the writing is on the wall for print journalism, that everything's is moving onto the internet. Our paper has an online version, but I still love the idea of seeing my writing there in black and white on the newsstands in the morning.
[ 本帖最後由 FaTe‧達 於 2012-4-5 02:00 編輯 ]
