Handbook

STUDENT HANDBOOK OF THE HUDSONIAN

2019-2020

About The Hudsonian

Purpose: “It is the policy of Hudson Valley Community College, through the publication of The Hudsonian, to keep the campus informed of school and local news and events. The main objective of The Hudsonian is to inform the HVCC community and teach students how to report news and publish a newspaper, in accordance with generally accepted journalistic principles.” – Constitution of The Hudsonian

Membership: A member shall be designated as anyone who has attended the first regular general meeting of the semester, anyone who has attended two consecutive regular general meetings in a semester, or as anyone who has completed the proper paperwork to become a staff writer or staff photographer after completing at least one (1) story assignment.

How The Hudsonian is funded:

The majority of The Hudsonian’s funding comes from the Student Senate (student government at HVCC) through the club budget process. Funding for all clubs is provided by the student activities fee, which usually increases each year. The oldest club on campus, The Hudsonian has the highest budget of any club.

Payment:

Staff photographers receive a stipend of $10.00 for each photo printed in The Hudsonian.
Staff writers receive a stipend of $25.00 for each article printed in The Hudsonian.
Stipends will not be issued to students who fail to file the appropriate paperwork to become official staff members of The Hudsonian.
“No member shall be compensated past what they pay in tuition.” – Student Senate Constitution

GPA requirement:

“Each staff member must maintain a minimum 2.0 cumulative GPA.” – Constitution of The Hudsonian

Paperwork:

To matriculate as a member of The Hudsonian and receive compensation, you must fill out a W9 form and a Student Senate Information sheet. They will be provided to you at the first regular general meeting of the year.

THE HUDSONIAN IN A WEEK

We print weekly throughout the semester.

Monday:

Weekly meetings are held at 2 p.m. in CTR 293
Stories and photos are assigned to be worked on throughout the week by way of the “story list”
Staff talks with the appropriate editor about their assignment to get tips, help, contacts, etc…

Wednesday:

Editors check in with writers and photographers to see that the assignment is in progress.

Friday:

Friday is submission day, unless a news or sports story is going to occur over the weekend or late friday night, the story should be submitted.
The editing process begins with the section editor.

Saturday:

Section editors edit stories, photo editor edits photos, and copy editor makes final edits to the stories.
Articles and photos are submitted to the Layout Editor.

Sunday:

Layout Editor begins to layout the paper.

Monday:

All section stories are put together for the “story list” at the general meeting and the cycle starts over again.

Tuesday:

Editors review layout of the paper.

Wednesday:

Layout is finalized and sent to print.

Thursday:

Paper is distributed around campus generally by the editors.

The Basics

When you write an article, it is important to get the point across as quickly and effectively as possible.

Make sure to avoid making sentences too wordy. Steer clear of using a bunch of connecting words or conjunctions. Make your sentences as simple as possible. Keep them at a FIFTH GRADE READING LEVEL.

This may seem a little against everything that every English class ever taught you, but as a newspaper our goal is to assure that we get the news to the most people as possible. The higher in reading level that we go, the more more people who will not have the ability to read the paper.

Keep it short:

Omit long intellectual words and awkward phrasing to make sure the piece is publishable.

Always choose the word that is the most common and straightforward.

One formula that you can use in order to assure your sentences are in the desired format is:

Subject – verb – direct object

You can change up the order to avoid choppiness and monotony.

Each of your paragraphs should be short too. Keep your paragraphs between 2-5 sentences. With 5 being the absolute maximum!

When you edit you article after you write it, make sure that every word you used is important and necessary and eliminate everything that is not.

How long should your stories be?

Basic news stories should be about 500 words
Feature stories can be about 600-750 words

Keep your stories objective

Objectivity in journalism aims to help the audience make up their own mind about a story, providing the facts alone and then letting audiences interpret those on their own.

To maintain objectivity, journalists should present the facts whether or not they like or agree with those facts. Objective reporting is meant to portray issues and events in a neutral and unbiased manner, regardless of the writer’s opinion or personal beliefs.

The only time it is acceptable for you to insert yourself into the dialog of a story is when you are writing an editorial or an opinion piece.

Example:

DO NOT: The mayor wore a very expensive suit.

DO: The mayor’s suit cost $5500.

Avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance or social status.

When using language and doing a cover piece or news story, be sure to watch what wording is used. Do not use slang terms to describe a person or a demographic.

Diversify the piece. Don’t just address one side. Try to get quotes that address the other side, or the counterclaim. If a story is submitted and it does not have more than one perspective addressed, the story will be banked until another other side is heard.

Interviewing

Why is it important for journalists to conduct interviews? Conducting interviews is the only way to get great news stories. Interviews give you everything from eye-witness testimonies to events to personal opinions or perspectives that could spark a reader’s interest. In murky news stories where the story is still developing, conducting interviews will help you construct a timeline. They can also grant clarity to most relationships that may not be obvious to you or the reader.

Interviewing Strategies

Plan and Research
Know your source/topic FIRST
Write questions and plan order for asking them
1. Hard questions?
2. Important questions?
Pick location carefully
Establish report and be courteous
Thank your source
Control the interview
Be persistent
Ask more questions than you need answered.
Ask open-ended questions
Observe
Follow up for clarification
Read back quotes
Always record the interview
Thank your source
If you ask a yes-no question, you’ll get a yes-no answer.

Last Tips

Take time to introduce yourself.
If you are interviewing a student, have them write their name and major into a notebook so you won’t have to worry about spelling their name.

Make sure you make the person you have the person you are interviewing consent to be recorded on the recording. One way to do this effectively is to start recording before entering an interview.
Be professional and friendly.

Is your interviewee not giving you good quotes? Here are 11 great questions that ALWAYS work!

How do you know that?
(It tends to justify comments that could be misconstrued, and exposes bigots.)
What makes you say that?
What happened next?
What does that mean?
Can you give me an example?
Has that ever happened before?
How often does that happen?
And?

(Don’t be afraid to let it get awkward, just act like the silence is the most normal thing in the world and wait for your interviewee to break.)

9) What’s it like?

10) What led up to this?

11) How did it work?

Are you interviewing for a profile? These are some great questions to make your subject more human and complex.

(No two people, and therefore profiles are the same. It is recommended you tweak these questions to better fit the your profile.)

If you could choose, what would you be doing —– years from now?
If you hadn’t become a —–, what might you have done?
What was the worst thing that ever happened to you?
What was the best day of your life?
What was the hardest obstacle you had to overcome?
Who was the person who most influenced you, and how?
If you were writing your epitaph, what would you say?
What would you say you people in your situation/working to be where you are?

Regardless of what you are interviewing for, ALWAYS end by asking one of the following:

Do you have anything to add?
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Have I missed anything you’d like to add?

Quotations/Attributions

If you want to any article that people will be interested in you need to get quotes from people about the subject you are writing about. This is true no matter what section for the paper you are writing for.

Why do you use quotations from people?

People reveal their attitude and personality through their words.
Quotes provide concrete and specific detail.
Interest to the story is added.
It’s the only way to include opinion/perspective on a topic.
Adds credibility to your story.

Types of Quotes

Direct Quotation = word-for-word from source, needs quotation marks

Example: Krandell said, “Brewing beer at home is both fun and easy.”

**A direct quotation is ONE complete sentence from a source.

When to use:

if you can’t improve on source’s language
if source’s quote is particularly witty, funny, or unusual
if quote is a controversial opinion
if quote is evidence for a crime/situation
if quote reveals personality relevant to story

Use direct quotes to illustrate a point.

Use them to add depth and perspective to an issue.

Use as supporting details.

Is it okay to make changes to direct quotes?

Sometimes you will get a great quote that is hard to understand. There are two instances when it is okay to make changes to direct quotes:

You may correct grammar errors.

(Unless it is news that the source uses incorrect grammar.)

You need to omit profanities.

(Unless it is news that the speaker uses profanities.)

Partial Quotation = use some words as stated, use quotation marks

Example: Krandell believes home brewing is “fun and easy.”

When to use: ALMOST NEVER

if source’s full quote is weak, wordy, or awkward
if you need to quote a few controversial words

**You take ideas out of context with a partial quote which can be confusing and hurt the credibility of your story. Avoid them.

Indirect Quotation = paraphrase ideas, no quotation marks

Example: Brewing beer is fun and easy according to Jim Krandell, a local home brewer

When to use: OFTEN –and if a direct quote is unneeded or unusable.

**Much of your news reporting from a source will be in the form of an indirect quote. Just don’t forget the attribution.

Attribution

You must always include in your story from where, from whom, and when you got your information .

This is especially true when :

Statements that are controversial
Statements of opinion
All direct or partial quotations from a source

The way you refer to a source throughout an article changes from the first time they are mentioned.

First attribution:

The first time someone appears in an article you absolutely must state their full name and relation to the college. So if it is a student :

“Having coffee with President Ramsammy will help me win the Game of Thrones,” said John Doe, an environmental science major.

If the person in the article is not a student, state their occupation.

“Coolio Julio,” Dr. Setodzi Kwaku Avoke, chair of the the Memetics Department at Hudson Valley Community College, said in his speech on Wednesday.

After their first appearance, you only need to refer to them by name.

“Cool,” Goldberg said.

If it is apparent who is talking, you may use pronouns to refer to the speaker. You usually would only do this if the speaker had two or more quotes in a row. If you are ever unsure if it is evident who you are referring to than you should stick with calling them by their last name.

Start a new paragraph after every quote, and don’t be afraid to break the quote into multiple paragraphs.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER use the “When asked, he said…” structure.

i.e.)

DO NOT: When asked why he did it, he said, “I wanted to be famous.”

DO: He said he did it because he wanted to be famous.

How to write a basic news lead

The lead is the most important sentence in the ENTIRE article. It should summarize the most important idea in the article. As reporters we want people to read our articles, and the first few lines of the story determine whether the reader is interested in finishing the story or not. A story that goes unread is pointless.

With that in mind, what makes a good lead?

The lead is super important and formulating an effective one can be a pain. With news, you state the news. In creative, the process is different. Leads should address the main point of the article.

Avoid stating the obvious, exaggeration, and misleading readers.

Use action verbs, not passive voice.

As a general rule, the lead must be under 30 words. If your lead is over 30 words this is a sign that you are not being communicating as clearly as you could be.

Remember that as you write a story, the focus might change. After you have written your story, scrutinize it and make sure it still reflects the story’s message.

The shorter and more concise the better

DO NOT: Students in different Digital Media programs all gathered last Friday at the HVCC Teaching Center for the opening reception of the Third Annual Digital Media Exhibit. The event was meant to show off students’ creations throughout the year, as well as give awards to the best creators.

DO: Digital media students were brought together for the opening reception of the Third Annual Digital Media Exhibit.

Focus on what will impact the reader

No one cares about things that do not affect them. Grab their attention by putting the details that will most affect the reader first.

Avoiding prepositional phrases helps with this. Get straight to the point. The lead features the most important facts of the story.
Use the rest of your article to discuss them.

Do not: HVCC recently held an information session to answer questions and accept signups for their Intro to Automated Web Testing class. The class is also a collaboration between the college’s Workforce Development Institute (WDI) and AlbanyCanCode, a local nonprofit meant to help students who are looking to get into a computer technology field.

Do: Are you interested in Automated Web design? Hudson Valley will be offering a class called “Intro to Automated Web Testing” where students will be able to learn the tricks of the trade.

Which article would you want to read?

5 deadly sins of lead writing:

Don’t begin with an attribution.

i.e. According to a recent study, …

No ‘agenda’ leads. (Avoid stressing WHEN, focus on WHO and WHAT.)

i.e. When the council met last night, ….

Don’t open with a list. Focus on a singular subject (which should be a person)

i.e. Fat, sugar, and carbohydrates should be…

Avoid the obvious and/or subjective.

i.e. It was a tragedy when two children were killed.

Don’t use the negative point of view.
(Focus on what happened, NOT what didn’t happen.)

i.e.. Few people showed up for the game.

ALTERNATIVE LEADS

Looking for an alternate way to start your story? If you feel like you mastered the basic news lead here are some other ways you can try writing your leads.

Paint a picture

This scene-setting lead describes the physical location where a story takes place. This doesn’t mean your lead should be any longer or less attention grabbing than basic leads though.

“The evening after the inauguration, the streets of Washington D.C. were alive with the cheers of Trump supporters. They roamed the dusk streets, travinhging in small packs and waving American flags.”

Try using a strong quote

The quote should still fall in line with the general rules for lead writing. It should be brief, convey central point and it still must have effective attribution.

“I don’t know what else there is to Welcome Week besides the free food,” said Jessie Yetto, a physical education student.

Shock them with a zinger

The zinger lead is dramatic and attention-grabbing. Although it has a strong tone, it requires a hard set of facts to back it up. One famous lead that would fall into this category is from Pulitzer Prize winning, journalist Edna Buchanan.

“His last meal was worth $30,000 and it killed him.” (The story was about a man who died while trying to smuggle cocaine-filled bags in his stomach.)

Ask a question

Question leads do just that: ask a question. Although they are effective in sparking interest, use them sparingly because they generally do not provide the main points of a story as concisely.

“Do you know all of the fun things going on right in Hudson Valley Community College’s backyard?”

Try Directly addressing your audience

Use the second person “You.” Speak directly to the reader and feed them the news.

“If you’re looking for a spicy wardrobe change, then the newly opened Rite Aid across the street just might be the destination for you.”

Tell your reader something they don’t know

Sometimes address readers with a startling fact is very effective at grabbing their attention.

“37.2 percent of college aged students transferred between universities in 2008, according to a study conducted by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.”

Grammar and Punctuation

While the official A.P. Style Guide can be located in the back of this handbook, it will take a while to read through. This is a collection of some of the bigger issues that students have regarding grammar and punctuation when they write for The Hudsonian.

Make sure you keep periods, commas, exclamation points, question marks all go inside quotation marks.

-If quote continues on as a sentence, use a comma

-If quote ends sentence, use a period

-Quote within a quote, use single quotes (‘…’)

Oxford comma

In order to maintain uniformity, do not use Oxford commas.

Ex: The flag is red, white and blue.

Semi Colons

-A good rule of thumb: if you can make a period or a colon work, do so instead.

-Your best bet is to try to break it into two sentences.

Italics

The general rule stated in the A.P. Style Guide is to avoid italics in journalistic writing. They are not necessary for titles or names.

Capitalization

do not capitalize the following:

-freshman, sophomore, etc.

-names of majors or departments, unless already a proper noun (French, English, American history, etc.)

Or:

–unless it is the entire formal name of a school’s department

(Hudson Valley Community College Department of Biology)

-Titles used alone, like doctor, teacher, actor, president, professor UNLESS used with the full name/title/proper noun:

(State Medical Examiner Melinda Warner vs. Melinda Warner, the medical examiner / the president had a press conference vs. U.S. President Barack Obama had a press conference)

Hyphenation

There are A LOT of different stipulations, but this is a general rule: If you are using two words to describe a noun, but neither word would work on its own, they should be hyphenated

Example: “Most children today live in two-parent households”

-This description indicates a household that includes two parents. Saying “live in a parent household” or “live in a two household” would not make sense.

-As stated, this is not a rule that applies to everything, so if you are having trouble discerning, you can always google the A.P. Style guide or ask an editor.

PHRASES AND WORDING

Try to avoid using cliche phrases or turns of phrase unless necessary

-Examples: at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, in other words

Avoid repetition of words and phrases, especially in sports. It is easy to overuse words like “Scored” or “had__goals” or “made/got__points”

Try to avoid redundancy: this means eliminating words that you have repeated or that have the same meaning

-Example: “The office completely agreed unanimously that they would leave early because everyone really wanted to go home.” <— A lot of this sentence could be omitted because it’s already implied.

Avoid using phrases like this when leading into a quote…

-“When asked about___…” or “in what would be” or “his thoughts on it were___”

-It’s better to just use the quote or paraphrase if needed without the use of these phrases. They are usually redundant and unnecessary and take away some of the articles “flow”

Photography

In a newspaper, the first thing that people look at are photos. If they think the photo is interesting, then they might go to look at the rest of the article. An interesting photo will make your reader want to learn more about what is happening, and read the news.

What makes a great photo?

Life

To the people involved in the story, it is a big event. People being photographed should look alive and involved in the subject of the photograph.

For The Hudsonian, photos should have STUDENTS doing activities in context.
Showing students faces can really help to increase interest in the story. When possible, always make sure you have faces in your photos.

2) Relevant context

Always shoot people in context.

i.e.) If you are writing a story about a student athlete, get them in uniform kicking a ball around, not listening to music under a tree eating pasta.

3) Meaning

Every news picture must tell the story clearly, without needing people to read the story first in order to understand what the picture is all about. In other words, every news picture must have meaning.

Types of Photos

Show what happened

Show what happened. This type of photo is helpful because it provides proof that the event really happened. It allows readers to see it with their own eyes. It also takes the readers there, and lets them see the setting in which the event happened. It helps the words to tell the story, by making clear what they mean.

Photograph the epitome

Show, on a small scale, exactly what something larger is like. Reduce the vast scale of the story to the human scale, then the story gains emotional power. Show in one person what the story actually means to 500, 10,000 or 30,000 people.
It turns statistics into people.

Photograph the people

News is about people. It is about things which people do, and things which happen to people. Show the person’s character and the person’s context.

Hit your audience with a revelation

Photograph what people don’t usually see or don’t want to see.

Be humorous

Pictures can often be fun by bringing together things that are not usually seen together or by using contrasts of extreme sizes.

Just making it pretty

Photograph something or someone attractive.

The Mechanics

Always try to use a high quality camera. A DSLR is always preferable, but we do not live in a perfect world. However, some cell phones have high enough resolutions to be used in the paper! Your photo must be above 10 megapixels to be run.

Try to avoid using your cellphone if to does not fit the qualifications specified above. However if something newsworthy has just happened, feel free to use your phone. It’s always better to have photos then nothing at all.

If possible, try to ask permission before taking a photo. Tell the subject you are with The Hudsonian and why you are taking the photo. This is kind of a case by case subject, sometimes something newsworthy will be happening (i.e. a protest or a crime) and asking to take a photo isn’t practical, however you also don’t just want to go up to some students minding their own business and start snapping photos.

Take a lot of photos

Never just snap one picture. You always want to be sure that you have multiple versions so that you produce the best picture. Always send multiple photos to the Photo Editor/Layout Editor so they have something to choose from based off what the paper needs that work in terms of design.

Try to get multiple angles, you never know which one will look the best when you’re looking back and editing them.

Use your zoom! Take a variety of far away and up close pics and then we can publish more of your photos if you don’t take almost the same kind of photo for the story.

Editing Photos

Always edit your photos just a little bit brighter that how you would like it to be. In print, photos always appear about 20% darker than how they appear on screen, and that goes for anything, not just newspaper prints.

Don’t drastically change your photo. For example, you should never put a built in filter on a photo you are submitting or manipulate it so it looks like a different photo. If you have no experience with Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Photoshop, meet up with the Photo Editor and ask for advice and how-to’s.

If you shoot in both RAW and JPEG format, send both over to the Photo Editor. If you cannot shoot in RAW, a JPEG will do just as well.

If you have no experience and have no desire to learn, just send the photo as is and the Photo Editor will take care of it.

Submitting your Photos

Never send them via email. Email tends to take really high quality resolution photos and shrink them down to fit in the email.

All photos are due by Friday night. Obviously there are exceptions, like sports games that happen on Saturdays or Sundays. You will not be able to submit the photo until that day. If they are after Friday and are needed for the upcoming issue, get them into the Photo Editor as soon as possible.

Label for what event your photo was from. If we are putting a big issue together, we won’t always know what photos go with what story based off of the look. For example, if you are taking photos from a sports game, label it “Women’s Basketball, HVCC vs. Herkimer”.

Share them via Google Drive. This format will not shrink down the resolution and allow all parties to easily access and download them.

Remember that no one started out being a perfect photographer. Everyone always has to start somewhere. Only with practice will you get better so go out and take some awesome pics!