Digital editing may have made the art of clubbing copy — a newspaper term for joining news reports — easier, but it is a skill that is valued greatly in all newsrooms. You have to club news reports at some point or the other.
Newspapers get news stories from two sources:
1. News reports filed by their own reporters
2. Reports filed by wire services or news agencies such as PTI, UNI, IANS, ANI, AP, Reuters, AFP etc
Since each wire service files a news report on a major event, the newspaper desk has to grapple with three or even four stories on the same subject. The process of joining information available in these copies is called clubbing.
There are three kinds of clubbing that occur on newspapers desks.
# Adding extra information to the report filed by Staff Reporter
There are times when the report filed by the staff reporter may be inadequate or may miss out important points. In this case, the newspaper retrieves these points from the wire copy and adds them to the Staff Reporter’s story.
The news desk, however, takes care to credit the inserted information to the wire service or news agency.
# Club news reports moved by two or more news agencies on the same subject
This is a common, everyday affair. The copy editor has the choice of using any one agency story that carries all facts or select important points given in different agency stories and string them together.
In either case, the credit line states the names of news agencies from whose copy the facts are taken. If the facts are taken from stories filed by more than two agencies then the newspaper may go for the more generic credit line and say Agencies.
# Club news updates filed by news agencies on developing stories
You can expect multiple updates from wire services on major events. This is because they cater to the news needs of scores of media companies, each with a different deadline. The wire services are therefore required to file a news report as soon as the event happens, even if it means that the first report carries very few facts.
The wire service updates the news report once it obtains more facts and feeds it to all newspapers. It is now for the newspaper to pick up points from the earlier story.
# Points to keep in mind while clubbing news reports
You need both skill and experience to club news reports. The points that should be kept in mind while clubbing copy are:
- The most important point is placed at the top.
- All news points are covered in diminishing order of importance
- Information taken from wire services is properly credited.
- There should be no change in meaning when you club news reports. Otherwise, the agency will be well within its rights to disassociate itself with the clubbed information.
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