Style Guide: General Comments
Reporters should ALWAYS get a name when quoting someone. If they want their name to be held back then they must have a very good reason for doing so, such as they fear repercussions for their own or their family’s safety. If they refuse to give their name, state it in the copy and tell them that is what you are going to do. Company and organisation spokespeople have no excuse.
News editors and reporters should never try to format the copy they are sending to the sub editors. Putting words in bold, italic or with unusual spacings or tabbing will result in chaos when being called into Quark by the production unit.
Placing an indication of factual accuracy after a name or sentence such as CORR, (correct), or tick, or any other such derivation should ONLY be done when it has been double checked as accurate.
important dos and don’ts:
Do italicise film/book/song/play titles etc in body text in ents. But not in captions, content panels, standfirsts or in ANY NEWS PAGES
Do use a five column grid unless absolutely impossible
Do avoid widows (on top line of a column) and orphans (at end of pars)
Don’t justify text vertically. If columns don’t line up, edit the copy, add copy or change the size of the text box instead
Don’t use soft returns. Again, edit the copy, add copy or change the size of the text box instead
Don’t repeat words in headings and/or sub-headings (especially relevant for cover lines)
Do use libraries for furniture.
Don’t use American spellings. Watch out especially for ‘z’ instead of ‘s’ eg. analyse/memorise/criticise
And lastly but most importantly…
Do promote our websites! The colour-coded page headers provide an opportunity to promote an online story. But also try to spot chances to redirect readers from our stories to the websites using the teasers stored in the Quark libraries. Remember: we are a web first organisation.
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