FOLLOWING on the heels of an impressive fall tabloid-size supplement on the football team, the Sports section last week treated readers to an equally noteworthy enhancement to daily coverage. Starring the men's basketball team, this supplement featured solid, well-written profiles on players, dramatic accompanying photographs, and, with a few exceptions, striking layouts.
The Cavalier Daily's sportswriters consistently do well in getting their subjects to open up and give good quotes. The profile on Elton Brown in particular featured a few great ones, and they were rightfully displayed prominently in the piece's layout. "I have to get double digit rebounds. I have to be a threat in the post. I need to get better on defense. For us to win this year, I have to be big. I know I can do that," Brown says in the article. This is so much better than run-of-the-mill "If we work hard, we should do well" verbal uttering. Granted, sometimes a subject is more adept at expression, as may be the case with Brown, but often thoughtful verbal response comes as a result of carefully posited interview questions.
In other supplement news, it appears that the Arts & Entertainment section downgraded its annual book review supplement to a mere page of reviews rather than a separate entity. This is disappointing. Tuesday's page featured three book reviews, which seems novel since the A&E page doesn't cover books on a regular basis. A book-reviews-only page, however, is a poor substitute for a traditionally excellent supplement. Besides, why should the fun be limited to the Sports folks?
Serial logistics
Newspapers often carry articles that are part of a series in which each piece is designed to address different angles of a singular topic. It is a good way for editors to present substantial subjects to readers without forcing them to meander through one lengthy zigzagging article. The Cavalier Daily news pages carried a series about textbooks last week that brought to light fascinating behind-the-scenes details about the science of selling these pricey tomes. Perhaps timed to coincide with registration, the series ran Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
The first article was a surprisingly absorbing look at textbook vendors and the pros, cons and logistics of selling imported textbooks, which can lead to lower costs. This article should have been preceded by the second piece in the series, which, through its look at how used books affect new book pricing, could have been a better introduction to the world of textbook buyers and sellers. The second and third articles also seemed a bit redundant, as the third addressed many of the questions already answered in the second. Each article in a series should confront a different angle of the subject, and this wasn't necessarily the case with the middle and last piece.
Editors and designers must make sure to appropriately label a series. The first article regarding textbooks made no mention of the fact that two articles on the same subject would follow throughout the week. The second and third pieces did feature elements above the headlines indicating which part of the series they were; however, writers and editors should include a line of text preceding the article explaining that it is part of a series as well as what the series will be addressing.
Some side(bar) notes
Non-article elements like sidebars can be helpful ways to get information quickly and cleanly. Last week, however, the A&E sidebars and the daily "Around Grounds" feature on the news jump page were rife with sloppy errors. The A&E bar on Tuesday told readers that "Elf," the top-performing movie at the box office, made "$32.1." Of course the compilers meant to convey $32.1 million. The A&E staff needs to either put an "M" after the stats or note at the list's end that the figures are all in the millions.
The "Around Grounds" feature daily includes times for various happenings, but the compilers of this information need to be consistent with their punctuation. Associated Press style mandates that time should be indicated with the hour as a numeral followed by "a.m." or "p.m." Note the periods.
On Tuesday the weather forecast predicted that it would be mostly sunny on "Satday." Editors, please use the spell check function for every feature. That means sidebars, info boxes, captions, etc. (Thursday's front page had a caption about a national "campiagn.") Having one spelling error is not that big of a deal, but when it happens over and over, it makes writers and editors look less intelligent than they are.
(Emily Kane can be reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com)
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