Editorial

An editorial (often leader or leading article in the United Kingdom) is a phrase or article by a news organization newspaper or magazine that expresses the opinion of the editor, editorial board, or publisher.

An op-ed, abbreviated from opposite editorial due to the tradition of newspapers placing such materials on the page opposite the editorial page, is similar in form and content to an editorial, but represents the opinion of an individual contributor, who is sometimes but not always affiliated with the publication.

These two terms are sometimes used interchangeably by the public, although it is important to understand that they have different definitions and characteristics.

While standard editorial pages have been printed by newspapers for many centuries, the first modern op-ed page is generally attributed to the New York Times, which initiated its page on September 21, 1970, under editorial page editor John B. Oakes.

Oakes had argued for the page's creation for ten years; when it appeared it instantly became one of the paper's most popular features. At the time, Oakes wrote that his motive in creating the page was to provide a forum for non-Times employees to have their say.

News Writing

News style (also journalistic style or news writing) is the particular prose style used for news reporting (ie. in newspapers) as well as in news items that air on radio and television.

News style encompasses not only vocabulary and sentence structure, but also the way in which stories present the information in terms of relative importance, tone, and intended audience.

News writing attempts to answer all the basic questions about any particular event in the first two or three paragraphs: Who? What? When? Where? and Why? and occasionally How? (ie. "5 W's"). This form of structure is sometimes called the "inverted pyramid," to refer to decreased importance of information as it progresses.

Editorial Cartooning

An editorial cartoonist, also known as a political cartoonist, is an artist who draws cartoons that contain some level of political or social commentary. The most common outlet for political cartoonists is the editorial page of the newspaper not the dedicated comic section, although certain cartoons have achieved crossover status.

Most editorial cartoons lack the type of explicitly partisan political opinion found on the rest of the editorial page, instead opting for humor that reflects the conventional wisdom of readers. Nevertheless, the presence of explicitly partisan, critical and satirical humor is growing in editorial cartoons as partisan opinion and argument continue to play a larger role in News Media as a whole.

In recent years the internet has become an excellent means for distributing short format media, humor, and minority political opinions, leading to a large growth in the popularity of online alternative editorial cartoons.

There is a Pulitzer Prize awarded every year for America's top editorial cartoonist — as decided by a panel of senior media industry professionals and media academics (see Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning). Other major awards given each year to editorial cartoonists include the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Thomas Nast Award from the Overseas Press Club, and the Herblock Prize.

Sports Writing

Sports journalism is a form of journalism that reports on sports topics and events. While the sports department within some newspapers has been mockingly called the toy department, because sports journalists do not concern themselves with the 'serious' topics covered by the news desk, sports coverage has grown in importance as sport has grown in wealth, power and influence.

Sports journalism is an essential element of any news media organization. Sports journalism includes organizations devoted entirely to sports reporting — newspapers such as L'Equipe in France, La Gazzetta dello Sport in Italy, Gazeta Sporturilor in Romania, and the now defunct Sporting Life in Britain, American magazines such as Sports Illustrated and the Sporting News, all-sports talk radio stations, and television networks like ESPN.

Feature Writing

A feature article is an article in a newspaper, a magazine, or a news website that is not meant to report breaking news, but to take an in-depth look at a subject.
While there are no precise guidelines on the differentiation between features and news stories, features are often significantly longer than news articles, are more likely to be written from a personal perspective, and unlike news stories do not always deal with the events of the immediate past.

Features are written in a less urgent fashion than news stories, sometimes taking several paragraphs to arrive at the main story while trying to engage the reader and keep them reading by employing narrative hooks. Feature stories often delve deeper into their subjects, expanding on the details rather than trying to concentrate on a few important key points.

The writing style of the articles can be more colorful and employ a more complex narrative structure, sometimes resembling the style of a nonfiction book more than a news report.
As the print media faces ever stiffer competition from other sources of news, feature stories are becoming more common as they can be more engaging to read.

At many newspapers, news stories are sometimes written in "feature style," adopting some of the conventions of feature writing while still covering breaking events. Wire services such as the Associated Press, which previously made a point of distributing only news, now also include feature stories.

The Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing is awarded annually for a distinguished example of feature writing in an American newspaper or magazine, giving prime consideration to high literary quality and originality.