Bath Chronicle - Deadline Day, week one

The second day of my placement at the Bath Chronicle was deadline day, as the newspaper comes out weekly on a Thursday. The same editors had another meeting in the morning that I attended with the final ‘newslist’ copy. They finalised which stories were going on which pages and sorted out the front page by changing the main lead to another story that had fortunately come up that day. This was interesting to see as it showed how the newspaper handled the ethics of reporting.

After the meeting, I went out with a reporter who was going to interview the main subjects of the front-page story. On the way, I was able to ask her some questions about how she had gotten her job at the Chronicle. Having had the job for three years now, she said she had to do a journalism course after her degree and take exams in law, governmental organisation and shorthand writing in order to pass. She did a work placement at the Chronicle near the end of her course and found out there was a job opening, so she applied for it and got the job soon after. This was encouraging to hear since it showed the importance of getting a work placement, as doing one and gaining contacts through it was the reason she eventually got the job.

After seeing the reporting in action, I then spent the rest of the day sitting with the deputy editors and seeing first-hand what they do to get the newspaper ready for publication. The editing process was exhaustive, even brutal, changing the style and writing of each piece to fit in with the brand identity of the newspaper.

For example, this is the finished version of the first article I wrote about mouse racing (compare it to the original in my last post!), taken from Bath Chronicle's website:

Mouse racing returns - and you should see the jockeys! (this was the actual headline.)

When you're placing a bet, it can be wise to start small.

And that's what you can do at a mouse-racing night in Bath this weekend.

The event at Larkhall Athletic's Plain Ham ground this Sunday at 6pm is part of the Larkhall Festival, and represents the revival of a 20-year tradition.

The club, for which the event is a fundraiser, is abiding by RSPCA animal racing guidelines.

The mice will be separated into six different tracks with a starting point and a finishing line.

The doors of each track will be opened simultaneously, with mouse bedding infused with the scent of food at the end of the race as a lure.

The majority of the mice used in the race will be rescue animals or borrowed from city pet shops.

Races can be sponsored for £25 on a first come, first served basis, while mice can be sponsored or entered into the race for £5.

Esther Moore

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As can be seen, my piece was changed almost unrecognisably from the original version to fit in with the style and brand identity of the newspaper. I realised from watching this process of editing that my style of writing is completely different from the style of a small-town local newspaper and perhaps I should have done more preparing. In retrospect I can see that I should have bought the newspaper every week in the ones leading up to the placement to get an idea of the style and brand identity of that specific paper and perhaps even practice writing in their style rather than my own.

Reflecting on the differences, I can see that my style of writing was influenced by a number of factors. Since I grew up in Jerusalem, Israel, where world-shaking events would happen every day that would make front-page headlines around the world, this instilled in me a desire to write in a way to reflect this. I also tend to read publications that focus more on world events and current affairs and I'm sure that this has influenced my writing style as well.

The Bath Chronicle, on the other hand, is a very targeted local city (what some would call a ‘small-town’) paper and has a specific way of relating to its readers. For example, as can be seen from the example above, they use humour and puns in ways that don’t fit the writing style that I am used to and this took some time to readjust to. However, it was good in the way that it provided a challenge of writing to fit to the publication's style rather than my own, an important skill to acquire in this industry.

Some of the tips I got for writing for this type of publication from shadowing the editor were:

• Need to keep it simple, one line paragraphs
• Don't use formal language or slang, but 'everyday speak' to better relate to the readers
• Short, to-the-point sentences, no frills
• Drop details and information into the article subtly; ie 'the 31-year old...' rather than taking up a whole sentence to explain 'he is 31 years old'
• Don't start an article with a name unless it is well-known, or a location that will only make it interesting to certain people connected to it. Need to hook people in, make sure it will be relevant and interesting no matter what the reader's background
• Quotes: can change the tense, clean it up, etc, as long as you don't twist their words to change the meaning
• Try to get full quotes (need to learn shorthand for this!)
  
• Numbers: spell out number one to ten; anything above use numbers
• Need to double-check every fact
• Cross-referencing: add tagline at end of story referencing related article(s).

On another note, all three articles I wrote got published! Clippings of the articles are shown below.