How is the sub-editor doing in the digital age?

How is the sub-editing craft doing in the digital age? Well, subs may be thin on the ground but in some places, at least, good sub-editing is still alive and kicking. Here’s my article in the latest edition of InPublishing on how the Irish Independent group has taken out the production layer but worked hard to keep up subbing standards. 

Does your newspaper look as dull as ditchwater?

With editorial budgets being squeezed ever tighter and managements increasingly focused on digital first, does it still matter what a newspaper looks like? You bet it does. I spend half my working life in newspaper offices and, unfortunately, still find:

• Flights of dull fillers, plundered from the ‘what’s on’ column? 

• Headlines with blands words such as ‘boosts’, ‘plans’ and ‘residents’. 

• Pictures of buildings as the main image.

• Citizen journalism that has led to pages of landscape pictures. I like contributed stories and photographs - but am often not keen on the execution. Newspapers are about people, not sunsets and trees. If the readers want flowers, they can pick up a bulb catalogue.

• Templating that has been misunderstood and has led to two-deck headline syndrome. It has made some journalists lazy and stifled their creative juices.

• Body copy set in 8pt Times, which is just about unreadable.

If longevity is the aim, these nasty habits need to be changed. Quickly. Good design can keep the sale stable but, more importantly, poor design is guaranteed to cause premature haemorrhaging. 
Some regional newspapers are excellent of course. I was massively impressed with the front pages and the design shortlists at last week’s Regional Press Awards. But there are still too many that look boring - and in today’s newspaper world, boring is the biggest sin.
If you recognise any of these traits, you may want to take a look at my tips on how to make your paper look better, which is in this month’s InPublishing magazine. Take a look here.  

What 2014 holds for regional newsrooms

If you work for a regional newspaper what can you expect in the coming year? InPublishing magazine asked me to offer a view - and I also solicited the opinions of the great and the good from the industry. The consensus, unsurprisingly, is that there are plenty of challenges and, inevitably, plenty of changes ahead. Click here to read it.

Has digital changed the art of headline writing?

Here is my latest article for InPublishing magazine - looking at the differences between writing headlines for print and online. There is some good insight by those who know, including Mail Online deputy publisher Pete Picton, Guardian backbencher Simon Ricketts, The Sun's Victoria Watson, the Indie's Martin King and media consultant Andy Drinkwater. If you have great eyesight you can read the print version by clicking on the images above or, if you prefer, you can read it online here. The headlines are the same in both versions. If you missed my last InPublishing article, on humour in newspapers, it's here. 

Regional newspapers ... you're having a laugh

I have long banged on to editors, news-editors, features editors and anyone else who would listen, about using more funny stuff in regional newspapers. Largely, it must be said, it has been with limited success. In the main, the Posts, Echos and Chronicles remain worthy and po-faced. On news-editing courses, I used to ask delegates to identify things in their paper that were genuinely entertaining. The record is three – including the horoscopes and the ubiquitous Horace and Doris. One respected editor once told me humour simply wasn’t part of his remit. “We are here to reflect the community, not tell jokes,” he said. His paper was crammed with crime, courts and coffee mornings – a reflection of his readers’ lives.

There have been some worthy exceptions. Peter Barron at The Northern Echo, Mike Lowe, Alan Geere and, from Norwich, Nigel Pickover are among those editors who have always worked hard at giving their readers a smile. Now, the web has confirmed what we always knew. People like a laugh. The stories that get the big hits are the funny, the weird and the outrageous. So as the holy grail is now unique visitors, local newspapers are hunting down the whacky, particularly if it's on video. So, at last, maybe humour will be the saviour of the regional Press.

I am grateful to InPublishing magazine for allowing me to bang on a bit louder this month and publish my thoughts on humour in newspapers ... who does it well and who doesn't. If you are minded, and you have great eyesight, you can read it on the images above. If not, you can read it on InPublishing's website here.