Glossary
of Journalism and Online Terms
attribute - to write the name of source of your information
when using a quote, of book, or a part of any copyrighted work.
broadcast - communicating near and far using radio
and television.
byline - your name, which is printed before or after
an article.
closed question - This type of question doesn't help
a interviewee to open up! Closed questions usually prompt a person
to answer with simple "yes" or "no". But
keep in mind that they can be the right questions to ask at certain
points in an interview. They help you pin down important information
and get a definite answer.
copy - material for a newspaper or magazine article.
beat - To cover a particular genre of journalism. (i.e.-
Music Journalism or Sports Journalism)
cutline - sentences at the bottom of a photo that describe
what happened in it, which usually relate to a story. Also called
a caption.
deadline - The editor of a newspaper, magazine, or other
media outlet sets a deadline. This is the time when they expect
an article to be submitted.
draft - Most journalists will write a draft of an article
before submitting it. After completing this draft, they will
edit their own work for content and mistakes before submitting
it to the editor.
editor - a person who edits material for publication
or broadcast.
editing - the process of reviewing a news story, revising
the writing and checking it for mistakes before it is published
or broadcast.
editorial - a newspaper article written by, or on behalf
of, an editor, especially one giving an opinion on a well-known
issue.
"Execution at Dawn" - These are groups of
people lined up against the wall to be shot (with a camera of
course)! For large groups, cutlines end up being long lists of
people from left to right'.
feature - A feature takes an in-depth look at what's
going on behind the news. It gets into the lives of people. It
tries to explain why and how a trend developed. Unlike news,
a feature does not have to be tied to a current event or a breaking
story. But it can grow out of something that's reported in the
news.
grammar - the study of classes and functions of words,
how words are said, and how words relate in a sentence.
journalist - a person who writes, edits, or reports
for a newspaper, magazine or news broadcast.
journalism - the business or practice of writing and
producing news media.
leading questions - These questions try to lead an
interviewee in a certain direction.
lede (or lead) - the first and most important sentence
of the story. It sets up what the story is going to be about.
loaded words - words that leave people with a distinct
and often negative impression. That can prompt your source to
get defensive or to disagree with your question and that
won't help you get an answer to your question!
neutral questions - A neutral question is straight-forward.
It doesn't have your opinion in it. You aren't assuming you know
the answer already. Your question is clear and gets right to
the point. In return, you will probably get an informative answer.
off the record - this is what people say when they
want the information they tell you to be unmentioned. This means
that they don't want their names or quotes to be said to anyone
or printed in your story.
on the record - the opposite of "off the record".
This means that you are allowed to use the person's name and
quotes for your story.
online journalism - stories that are written specifically
for the Web instead of newspaper, radio, television or magazine.
It can include the use of text, photos, graphics, hypertext,
audio and video to tell stories.
open-ended questions - these questions encourage the
person to talk and share their thoughts and feelings on a subject.
It allows them to tell their own story without much prompting
from the reporter.
pack journalism - this refers to large groups of reporters
from different newspapers or broadcasting stations who are all
after the same big story. You usually find mobs of journalists
outside courthouses, city halls, or at the scene of an accident
or disaster, to get comments from the important sources. Compare
this to a pack of hungry wolves: they're all hunting one thing,
the story, but they're all so hungry that they want to move in
to get the biggest piece for themselves.
photographs "Grip and Grin" - These are photos
of people receiving awards or diplomas, cutting ribbons or passing
out cheques. They just do the handshake' pose and smile
at the camera.
publish - to produce or release a written work for
the public to see or hear.
scrum - The gathering of reporters around a person
who is important to a particular story. When a scrum occurs,
all the reporters shout questions to the person in an attempt
to further their own story. This situation is much more informal
then a Press Conference.
source -a person, written article, book, song, video
or film from which to get information
syntax - the way that words are put together to make
sentences.
Wire - A source of information for Journalists. You
may have heard a reporter say that they got their information
"off the wire". The wire itself is an up-to-the-minute
source of information for other reporters.
wrap-up questions - help you make sure you have all
the information you need. You can ask your source questions like
this to end the interview and clarify information he has given
you during the course of your conversation.
clip - a segment of audio or videotape that's included
in a story that is broadcast on radio or television or on the
Web.
download - to take files from another computer or server
for use on your own.
encoding videos - the process of changing video camera
footage into digital footage which can be read and displayed
by a computer. (i.e.RealVideo material)
FTP - (File Transfer Protocol) This is a program used
to upload files and webpages from a personal computer to a server.
After an individual creates a website, they must upload (transfer)
this page to a server so that it can be viewed by others.
HTML - (Hyper Text Markup Language) HTML is the lingua
franca for publishing hypertext on the World Wide Web. It is
a non-proprietary format, based upon SGML and can be created
and processed in a wide range of tools from simple plain text
editors to sophisticated wysiwyg authoring tools. HTML uses tags
like <h1> and </h1> to structure text into headings,
paragraphs, lists, hypertext links and more.
hyperlinks - The text you find on a Web site which
can be "clicked on" with a mouse which in turn will
take you to another Web page or a different area of the same
Web page. Hyperlinks are created or "coded" in HTML.
They are also used to load multimedia files such as AVI movies
and AU sound files.
hypertext -A system of writing and displaying text
that enables the text to be linked in
multiple ways, to be available at several levels of detail, and
to contain links to related documents. It refers to a nonlinear
system of information browsing and retrieval that contains associative
links to other related documents. The World Wide Web uses hypertext
transfer protocol (HTTP) to provide links to pages and multimedia
files.
info-bahn - the information super highway (info, as
in information and bahn, as in German for highway).
*.jpeg *.gif - These two file extensions are the most
common types of picture files. If you were to scan a picture
into a computer yourself, you would need to convert the file
to one of these formats for use on a webpage.
Real Video - The format of video files displayed on
most Internet sites, such as SNN.
search engine - a program used by an Internet browser
to look for specific words and sort them for information.
server - A computer in a network shared by multiple
users. The term may refer to both the hardware and software or
just the software that performs the service. For example, Web
server may refer to the Web server software in a computer that
also runs other applications, or, it may refer to a computer
system dedicated only to the Web server application. There would
be several dedicated Web servers in a large Web site.
upload - to transfer files from your computer to another
computer or server.
web cast - a video or audio broadcast that's transmitted
over the World Wide Web.