Introduction to
Newspaper Design
September 4, 2015
Magazine & Newspaper Design I
What’s a Newspaper?
A publication that appears regularly and frequently, and
carries news about a wide variety of current events.
Organizations such as trade unions, religious groups,
corporations or clubs may have their own newspapers,
but the term is more commonly used to refer to daily
or weekly publications that bring news of general
interest to large portions of the public in a specific
geographic area. The United States had 1,611 generalcirculation daily newspapers in 1990 -- 14 percent
fewer than it had in 1940, before the arrival of
television.
- Mitchell Stevens
How Newspapers Work
• The news in general-circulation is gathered and then
written up by reporters
• Photographers shoot pictures to accompany the stories
and graphic artists contribute charts and diagrams.
• Editors assign reporters to stories, check over those stories,
write headlines for them, determine where they will be
placed in the newspaper and work on the paper's "layout" - the arrangement of stories, photographs and art on each
page
• An editor-in-chief or an executive editor usually supervises
the paper's news staff.
• The newspaper's publisher has overall control of its
business and news operations.
Roles of Newspapers
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COMMERCE
General-circulation newspapers play a role in commerce through the
advertisements they carry
INFORMATIVE
they provide readers with information of practical value, such as television
schedules, weather maps and listings of stock prices
ENTERTAINMENT
newspapers provide a source of entertainment through their stories and through
such features as comic strips and crossword puzzles
GOVERNMENT & POLITICAL
one of the most important functions of the general-circulation newspaper -- a
crucial function in a democracy -- is to provide citizens with information on
government and politics.
– Leaving newspapers free to perform this function was considered important enough by the
first Congress so that they specifically protected it in the First Amendment to the Constitution
of the United States, ratified in 1791, which, among its other guarantors of free expression,
prohibits Congress from passing any law "abridging the freedom...of the press." In 1787
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, wrote, "...were it left to me
to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without
a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
Precursors of Newspapers
Human beings exchanged news long before they could write.
• They spread news by word of mouth on crossroads, at campfires or at markets.
• Messengers raced back from battlefields with reports on victories or defeats.
• Criers walked through villages announcing births, deaths, marriages and divorces.
• Stories of unlikely occurrences spread, in the words of one anthropological report,
"like wildfire" through preliterate societies.
These early efforts to exchange news are discussed in the book "A History of News" by Mitchell Stephens.
With the arrival of writing and literacy news reports gained added reliability and, in
advanced societies like that of Rome and China, became more formal.
• Rome had a particularly sophisticated system for circulating written news,
centered on the acta -- daily handwritten news sheets, which were posted by the
government in the Roman Forum from the year 59 B.C. to at least A.D. 222 and
which were filled with news of such subjects as political happenings, trials,
scandals, military campaigns and executions.
• China, too, had early government-produced news sheets, called the tipao, which
were first circulated among officials during the Han dynasty (202 B.C. to A.D. 221)
and were printed at some point during the T'ang dynasty (618 to 906).
Precursors of Newspapers
The printing press was used to disseminate news in Europe shortly after Johann
Gutenberg invented the letter press, employing movable type, in the 1450s.
• One of the first printed works that might qualify as news was an Italian account of
a tournament printed in about 1470.
• A letter written by Christopher Columbus, reporting on his discoveries, was set in
type and circulating in Barcelona before Columbus arrived there in April of 1493.
• In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thousands of printed newsbooks,
short pamphlets reporting on a news event, and news ballads, accounts of news
events written in verse and usually printed on one side of a single sheet of paper,
circulated in Europe and, to a lesser extent, in the new European colonies in
America.
• The first news report printed in the Americas described an earthquake in
Guatemala and was printed in Mexico in 1541.
Although they touched upon a wide variety of news, these newsbooks and news
ballads did not qualify as newspapers because they each appeared only once, to
report on only one story, and they each had no identity separate from the
particular news story they told.
The First Newspapers
The modern newspaper is a European invention
• handwritten news sheets, known as avisi or
gazette – Venice, 16th century
• oldest printed newspapers were published
weekly – Strasbourg, Germany, 1609
• The oldest one that was printed in England –
September 24, 1621
• Earliest known use of the English term
“newspaper” was in 1670
The First Newspapers
• News items in these early newspapers were printed as they
came into the print shop.
– News of a battle in the Thirty Years War, which was then raging
on the Continent, might appear under the name of Vienna,
Frankfort or Prague or another city. It might have found its way
into a letter or a newspaper that in turn found its way to that
print shop.
– A newspaper might report under one date that a city was under
siege and then under another date that it had fallen.
• It was a system of journalism that was easy on printers but
not on readers.
• One of the first attempts to change this system, to actually
edit stories into more readable narratives, was made in
London, probably by Thomas Gainsford in 1622.
The First Newspapers
Along with their political coverage, newspapers in
England in the 1640s were among the first to
• use headlines
• print advertisements
• illustrate stories with woodcuts
• employ a woman -- "a she-intelligencer" -- to collect
news
• have newsboys, or more commonly newsgirls,
• sell papers in the streets
• to compete with newsbooks and news ballads in
coverage of sensational events like bloody crimes
The First American Newspapers
• Public Occurrences was printed in Boston on
September 25, 1690 (only 1 issue was
published)
• The Boston News-Letter first appeared in
print in 1704 (survived for 72 years)
• New England Courant, Boston, 1721 by James
Franklin was the most literary and readable of
the early colonial newspapers. First issue was
political crusade against smallpox inoculation
Homework Assignment
• Read the History of Newspapers
(available on miryum.com/hu)
• Prepare a 3 page report (double spaced, TMR,
12pt) highlighting the most significant events
in newspaper history according to the article
• Due Friday, September 18 (2 weeks!)
Sections of a Newspaper
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Feature (lifestyle, homes, travel, money, etc.)
News (local, state, national, world, etc.)
Opinion (Op-Ed, columns, letters to the editor)
Records (births, obits, announcements, etc.)
Advertising (circulars, coupons, classifieds,
etc.)
Types of Stories
• Hard News
– lead story: major story displayed at the top of Page One
• Soft News (features, human-interest)
• Specialty Stories
– second-cycle story: second version of story already published
with new info/angle, also called a second-day story
– series: two or more stories on same or related subjects,
published on a predetermined schedule
– roundup: story including a number of related events. After a
storm, for example, a reporter might do a roundup of accidents,
power outages and other consequences of the storm
– review: form of editorial written to comment on a play, movie,
piece of music or some other creative work
Anatomy and Terminology
• Broadsheet
"standard" or large-sized newspaper
• Tabloid
half-sheet paper, sometimes refers to
sensationalistic reporting
• Leading
amount of space between lines
• Kerning
amount of space between letters
Anatomy and Terminology
• Column inch
a measurement for newspaper space; a column inch is one inch
high & the width of a newspaper's standard column
• Tombstoning
the placing of two headlines side by side on a page or spread
• Dummy
a full-size drawing of a page showing where all page elements will
appear
• Pica
a unit of measurement in design; there are 12 points in one pica &
6 picas in one inch
• Rule
any printed line (plain or ornamental)
• Hairline
the smallest thickness for a rule
Anatomy and Terminology
• Pulled quote
significant quotation printed in large type to attract attention to a
story
• Filler
a short story or box of info used to fill part of a column
• Flush left
type that is flush against the left-hand margin (for headlines, etc.)
• Ragged right
text that is flush left and not justified
• Infographic
a visual representation of statistical information, such as a map,
chart, diagram or timeline
• Drop cap/ initial cap
a large capital letter of the opening word in a story; serves as a
graphic
Anatomy and Terminology
• Downstyle
a headline style in which all letters, except the first letter of the first word
and proper nouns, are set lowercase
• Gutters
white space that separates columns and facing pages
• Screens
shaded area; measured in percentages
• Baseline
the imaginary line on which type rests
• Editorial page
a section of the newspaper reserved for editorials and various other
pieces that contain opinion rather than objective reporting
• Column
a bylined article expressing the opinions of the writer, usually signed, and
appearing on the editorial page; or vertical section of printed copy in a
publication
Anatomy and Terminology
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Column head
"logo" or picture at the beginning of a column used repeatedly without change
Standing head
heading on a special feature or column used repeatedly without change (also
called a standing sig)
Promotional bars
bars at the top of the front page of a section promoting other items in that
section
Teasers
similar to promotional bars, found above the nameplate, used to "tease" the
reader regarding what's inside the paper
Ears
information on either side of the flag/ nameplate
Dateline
the place where a story was written or took place (usually the first part of the
story, in capital letters &/or bold type)
Anatomy and Terminology
• Editorial/ staff editorial
short article that expresses opinions on a topic. By strict definition, an
editorial expresses the official opinion of the newspaper and so doesn't
have a byline
• Banner
a bold headline that runs the entire width of the page
• Jumpline
a line of copy that indicates the page on which a story continues
• Feature story
a story that focuses more on entertaining than informing; soft news; may
be written on virtually any topic
• Masthead
a statement printed in all editions of a newspaper, generally on the
editorial page, identifying information about the publication (name,
publisher, editor, staff members)
Anatomy and Terminology
• Cut
a photo
• Credit line
a line at the bottom of a cut which gives credit to the photographer
• Caption/ cutline
lines of copy placed next to a photo that explain the content of the
photo
• Index
copy that lists the page numbers on which sections start
• Deck
the second level of a headline
• Kicker
a headline style that features one secondary headline above one or
more lines of a primary headline
Anatomy and Terminology
• Folio line
a line which includes the page number, date, name and section of the
paper
• Flag/ Nameplate
title of the newspaper appearing on the front page (includes volume &
issue numbers, publication date and city and state where the paper is
published)
• Lead
the first paragraph of a story (should be one sentence—25-30 words)
• Sidebar
a story supplementing, but separate from, another story on the same
subject in the same issue of the paper (usually on the same page)
• Slug
brief identifying name for a story
• Morgue
newspaper's library where copies are kept for research
Anatomy and Terminology
FIND THE FOLLOWING:
• Masthead
• Banner
• Jump
• Folio
• Sidebar
• Slug
• Gutter
• Kicker
• Sub-Head
• Byline
• Cutline
• Screen
Typography Practices
• 1. Serif fonts for close-set blocks of text.
• 2. Sans-serif fonts, usually, for large headlines.
• 3. Sans-serif or serif fonts for airy (ie not close-set) sections
of text.
• 4. Break up the page by using a variety of font sizes, font
weights, and capitalization for different readability focuspoints on the page.
• 5. Use fonts that have strong ascenders and descenders.
• 6. Use fonts with clearly-identifiable letter shapes. eg ‘a’
rather than ‘a ’, ‘g’ rather than ‘g’
• 7. Use ‘fancy’ fonts very sparingly and only for occasional
quirky effect.