News / Clark County News

From the newsroom: Here’s more Columbian jargonSubscriber Exclusive

By Craig Brown, Columbian Editor

Published: May 11, 2024, 6:10am

Teletypes machines were used in a variety of industries but in newsrooms, they carried wire stories to local newspapers like The Columbian. (Getty Images)

Last week I wrote about the jargon that we use in the newsroom. Some of it is common to newspapers, while other terms seem to be invented here. The jargon comes and goes as times and technology changes. When I started freelancing for The Columbian back in the 1980s, a term in daily use was the “cookie sheet,” which referred to the stories available for that day’s edition. Story management software killed that term.

Here is some Columbian lingo that is still in use:

Dummy: A thumbnail diagram of a forthcoming newspaper, showing where all the ads go. It’s the newsroom’s job to fill all of the other spots.

Wire, wire copy: You probably already know this old-fashioned term that is still in use for stories that we receive from news services. Of course, it comes over the internet these days, not by teletype!

Advance: A story written to let readers know about an upcoming event. You’ll see these in the Life and Sports sections, but it wouldn’t be unusual for the local news team to write an advance about an upcoming election or criminal trial.

Roundup: The column of local news briefs found inside the Clark County section on most days. Its formal name is Around the Area, but I am not sure I have ever heard anyone use those words.

ePaper: The digital replica of the print newspaper. We publish the ePaper six days a week, including Mondays. When we recently screwed up some coding and only the Sports section was published initially, we found out this edition is very popular!

Metrics: Things that are measured to gauge our performance. This includes digital and print subscriptions, the percentage of newsletters that subscribers open, the number of articles read on columbian.com in a month (almost always more than 1 million), and so forth. We can even track the online performance of stories, including how much time readers spend looking at them and how far down in the article they scrolled.

Centerpiece: The big display on each cover. Usually it consists of one or more photos and a story. It may also have a map or graphic. If the centerpiece lacks a story, we call it “wild art.”

Subscriber exclusive: We allow nonsubscribers to read a few stories for free online in a given 30-day period. But to try to reinforce the message that we need paid digital subscriptions to fund our business, we designate certain stories as subscriber exclusives, which means they aren’t a freebie. Our goal is to publish one subscriber exclusive per day.

CFJ: Short for Community Funded Journalism. Many people and organizations have donated to our CFJ program, enough that we are able to fund the salaries of five full-time reporters. The donations are made in our name to a nonprofit organization called the Local Media Foundation, which reimburses us for the cost of these reporters. If you want to know more, visit www.columbian.com/cfj or donate at givebutter.com/columbian.

Masthead: Often confused with the flag at the top of A1, the masthead is the box on the bottom of Page A2 that says how to contact us, contains the names of our executives and editors, and all the things the U.S. Postal Service needs us to put in there so we can mail the paper.

Zhuzh: I have no idea how to spell this made-up word that means to fiddle around with the design of a page, package or art element so it looks really fancy and compelling.

Funny numbers: Statistics that are pulled from a news story and made to look like an art element. It helps zhuzh up a page, especially if the art is limited and there aren’t enough statistics to make a chart or graph.

As Professor Brancaccio would say (another old reference), that completes today’s class. Danni, ring the bell and give a shout-out to Lou!

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