The Universal Journalist Homepage
Copy editing and design
The sub's room
In my experience a newspaper is not a well-ordered democracy.
Sir Gordon Downey
1990
In the foreign editorial room a sub-editor was translating
a passage of Plato's Phaedo into Chinese for a bet. Another sub-editor
had declared it could not be done without losing a certain nuance
of the original. He was dictating the Greek passage aloud from
memory.
Charles Cockburn
Observation on his first day
at 'The Times'
1929
Pictures
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
Gandhi
You are a pest, by the very nature of that camera in your hand.
Princess Anne
Addressing a photographer
I like photographers-you don't ask questions.
Ronald Reagan
40th US President
1983
Great captions
Wava Staab (left) and Rosie Dauner, both of Omaha, board a
Fun Tours bus, while Rosie Dauner stands behind. Both are from
Omaha. (The other lady (in blue on the right) is Ruth Nelson,
but she's dead now. It might be better to crop her out of the
picture.) (I need this picture back)
Caption as printed in the Journal-Star Lincoln,
Nebraska
Presentation
Always have a woman's story at the top of all the main news
pages in your paper.
Alfred Harmsworth
1898
The main objective of too many designers seems to be to show how
'creative' they are rather than to act as the technically trained
presenters of messages they are engaged to be.
Robert Harling
If you print in ordinary type, it is as if you had never printed
at all.
WT Stead
First editor to proudly proclaim
that he was sensationalist, said when he
took over the 'Pall Mall Gazette'.
Headlines
It is grievous to read the papers in most respects, I agree.
More and more I skim the headlines only, for one can be sure what
is carried beneath them quite automatically, if one has long been
a reader of the press journalism.
Mary Ritter Beard
(1876-1958)
Quoted in "A Woman Making History,'
1991.
Election of an Executive Committee of the American Cocker Spaniel
Club
Last headline in New York World before Joseph Pulitzer
took over in 1883
The Deadly Lightening
First headline in New York World after Pulitzer took over.