Editors' Guide: US

We need six to eight stories from the following sources. We're looking for stories that take place the U.S. that were posted within the past 24 hours.

Ideally, we want stories about universities and the challenges they face. We want our readers to say, "That is happening or could happen here in Halifax." In a pinch, we'll take stories about public lectures at universities or research produced by faculty members. But we don't want general-interest stories where the only university angle is an interview with a professor. And we're not looking for coverage of sports unless the story illustrates a broader issue.

The trick is to find stories that travel well. A story about unique budget problems at a small university in South Wales might not interest many readers in Nova Scotia. But similar problems affecting a number of universities would.

So, read yesterday's Digest to see what stories we've already summarized, and take a look and see what you can find:

As soon as you have selected your stories, meet briefly with the Co-ordinating Editor to confirm the story lineup. If another editor is also working on the section, ensure there is no overlap.

These are to be SHORT summaries:

  • Rewrite it in your own words to make it tighter and clearer
  • 75 words max. (85 in an absolute pinch)
  • Include the who, what, where, why, when and how
  • Does the headline tell the story? If not, rewrite it
  • It should take you 10-15 minutes per story

The format in MS Word should look like this:

Hard times hitting U.S. students and schools
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/education/01school.html
New York Times
Record numbers of students turning up for classes in the United States this fall are homeless or poor enough to qualify for free meals. "We're seeing a lot more children in poverty," said Lauren Roberts, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County school system in Kentucky. Increases in the price of fuel and food, coupled with the economic downturn, have left schools across the country cutting costs. Detroit has laid off at least 700 teachers and Miami-Dade County has let go hundreds of school psychologists, maintenance workers and custodians.

Write story summaries and save them to Online (drive)-> "!News Digest" folder. Put them in a sub folder named with today's date in YYMMDD format (eg. 091019). Create the folder if it doesn't exist. Save individual stories with a filename in the format: slug_yourinitials.doc (eg. election_tc.doc). Type only one story per Microsoft Word file. Close the file when you're done so the Co-ordinating Editor can open it.