Frances Forde Plude

The Power of the Print Media

[From Zacharias, Plude and Rancer, Chapter 4]

It is estimated that 85 percent of the communications industries involves written and print communications. Book publishing, for example, exceeds $7 billion in sales annually from the sale of over 40,000 titles, one quarter of which are textbooks.

More than 500 publishing firms operate in the United States alone. More than 9,000 newspapers, more than 5,000 general-circulation magazines, and 12,000 trade magazines are published, with a combined circulation of 60 million.

The career options for the person interested in print media include creative and professional writing, book publishing, editing, marketing, new technologies in publishing, special-interest publishing, and journalism.

Advice from the Professionals

Persons interested .in writing and publishing need to know the skills, personality characteristics, and type of education necessary for a career in print media. According to the professionals, they should:

• Acquire good oral skills

• Be precise

• Be open to new ideas

• Keep up with current events

• Be able to take criticism

• Be original and relevant

• Do independent research

• Become familiar with electronic equipment

• Start writing in high school and college

• Work for school newspapers and yearbooks

• Concentrate on small papers for the first job

Students should take English composition courses, with emphasis on spelling, vocabulary, etymology, and literature. Typing is also highly recommended.

In high school one should concentrate on creative writing, journalism, speech, and drama. In college a broad liberal arts education is a good preparation -for the print media.

Many people interested in careers in print media take a college degree in journalism or creative writing, supplemented by relevant electives. Key journalism courses include history and principles of journalism, American and foreign press, communications law, news evaluation, reporting, copy editing, and reporting of public affairs.

Many who study writing or journalism in college also prepare themselves for advertising and public relations careers. Coursework in those areas might include principles and practices of advertising, ad copy, psychology in advertising", salesmanship, advertising campaigns, newspaper promotion, radio-TV advertising, public relations, and business communications.

In a recent Careers Research Monograph published by the Institute for Research, "Writing for Television and Radio," several professional writers describe their work.

Dramatic Script Writer

I write drama TV. I've been doing this for some time. I get my degree in liberal arts, a degree in journalism, and had a lot of other writing experience before I started writing for TV.

"Scribbling" was my chief source of "pure joy" for as far back as I can remember. I was a scribbler of words before I entered kindergarten. I am a firm believer that real writers are born writers.

In high school, I took journalism, creative writing, and was editor of the school paper. I won or placed in a number of contests, sold articles to- newspapers, and short stories to magazines that ran special departments for teen-age scribes.

Radio Continuity Writer

I write straight continuity and other original, materials for several radio stations. I took courses in writing at a community college.

Disc jockeys read my stuff between recordings, announcements, and other programs: I do not have to follow any particular writing format. I write as I would any other piece, concisely and to the point, but tailor my writing to a conversational style.

Radio Commercial Writer

I write commercials for radio stations. I had two years' college education, some writing talent, and the "yen" to put that talent to use when I began this work.

As I turned the radio dial, I thought some of the commercials sounded pretty good; but others— well, I thought I could do better.

I learned to think commercials. I learned to be imaginative and original. J learned the limitations of the sixty-second, thirty-second, and ten-second commercial, as these are bounded by the number of words that can be used.

Science Documentary Writer

I majored in science in college and the summer after graduation participated in a three-month field trip to search for ancient remains of an American Indian tribe. I followed the filming closely and made extensive notes and records of everything.

I have pursued my love of science and exploration with a simultaneous fascination with the possibilities of television for communicating the job of discovering ancient and new truths about people and the universe. I am on staff now with the station and am scheduled for a one-hour documentary special every month.

These comments convey a variety of backgrounds and tasks among professionals. Some specific jobs in print media are the following:

Print Media

Career Categories

BOOK/MAGAZINE PUBLISHING

EDITORS

NEWSPAPERS

ADVERTISING

PUBLIC RELATIONS

SPECIAL PRINT FIELDS

Book Publishing

Publishing careers involve the production and sale of books, magazines, and newspapers. Publishing includes the selection of works for publication, the editing of those works, the processes of layout, design, and printing, the marketing and advertising of the publication, the management of the publishing firm, and the circulation of published materials.

Guide to Careers in Book Publishing, published by the McGraw-Hill Book Company, contains helpful information about the career. It also points out that today's publisher may deal with several media besides books: films, audio' and video tapes, transparencies, phonograph records, and filmstrips.

The most familiar type of book publishing is the publication of general books (called "trade books" because they are sold to the general public by the publishing trade). Children's books represent a significant segment of trade book publishing: Children's books may be science fiction, books about sports figures or other heroes or heroines, books on nature, dictionaries, how-to books, and science books.

Another significant sector of book publishing is professional publishing: books for doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, or other professionals. They are often circulated through special- interest book clubs or specialized bookstores.

Educational publishing accounts for a major percentage of book sales each year. Nearly 50 million students are enrolled in public and private elementary and secondary schools, and more than 10 million students in two- and four-year colleges. Another 30 million students are enrolled in evening schools or on-the-job training programs' in factories, offices and stores, and in home- study courses. Their learning materials consist of textbooks, workbooks, and laboratory manuals. But many other instructional materials arc also published: films, filmstrips, cards and charts, and language laboratory materials.

The book publishing field encompasses a variety of jobs. That of the book designer is one. The designer is responsible for the total "look" of the book. He or she selects typefaces, chooses colors, supervises drawings and artwork, and plans the layout and the cover of the book, all with the goal of making the book attractive and easy to use. This role allows for a bit of creativity, not just with the printed word, but with the total design of a published work.

The production of a book requires a production supervisor, who arranges the composition, printing, binding, and packaging of books, lie or she begins work when a book is being planned and represents the publisher in dealings with manufacturers: printers, binders, paper suppliers, and many others. Supervisors need to have a thorough knowledge of the printing business. Most have studied graphic arts.

Another interesting career in book publishing is marketing. Usually people begin as sales representatives and move into marketing positions.

Sales representatives often travel to conventions or trade shows where books, especially textbooks, are promoted and advertised. Trade books are, sold to bookstores or to wholesalers. A schoolbook representative is often an educational service specialist for the publisher. He or she is often a learning specialist and knows the latest ideas in education, providing valuable ideas to publishers. Sometimes a sales representative becomes an editor and works into a top editorial/management job.

Editors

Editors work in the development of ideas for books and in finding authors to write them. However, an editor's work also involves sponsoring a certain segment of a publishing venture. Such an editor may be called a senior editor, a project editor, or a product development manager.

A sponsoring editor proposes a book for publication, selects the author, and supervises the development of the product from the idea stage to the finished project. The actual scope of the sponsoring editor's responsibility depends on the size of the market and the breadth of the publisher's coverage.

A sponsoring editor must have a "feel", for marketing, along with some experience in publishing. Sponsoring editors in educational publishing may have been members of the publishing sales staff or may have been teachers.

The position of sponsoring editor is often a good career step toward a management position in publishing.

Another editorial job is that of editing supervisor. This person works with the manuscript through the stages of production until the actual manufacture of the book begins. He or she works with authors, encourages them- to improve their writing, and keeps the publication project on a time schedule.

Still another editorial role is copy editor, the person who goes over the manuscript meticulously to make certain that every sentence is clear and grammatically correct.

Another stage in publishing involves proofreading the manuscript after it has been set in type. Usually the galley proofs are read by the author and by the publisher's proofreader, who look for typographical errors. Proofreaders sometimes work on a free-lance basis.

On a newspaper the editor has overall editorial supervision of the entire paper; and he or she often writes editorials for the paper. Other newspaper editorial jobs include:

• News editor, who allocates space for news items

• Managing editor, who oversees editorial functions

• City editor, who directs and gathers local news and supervises reporters, photographers, and rewriters

• Foreign editor, who is in charge of international news

• Copy editor, who is in charge of all copyreaders as they check grammar, punctuation, and style and write headlines

• Department editors, who edit special sections such as sports and women's pages

• Production editors, who manage all mechanical aspects of production

Obviously, the work of editors is varied and specialized; in many ways the final product is the result of editorial supervision.

Publishing and Technology

New career fields are being opened up in print media by electronic advances, usually called "electronic publishing." Print media fields are being altered significantly by these new telecommunications technologies.

Print businesses are growing by about 11 percent annually, but electronic products are developing at more than 25 percent each year. Information in computerized form is now a $3.2 billion annual business.

Publishers use computer and communications technologies to automate production of their publications. Many newspaper and magazine articles are currently edited on computers. The Wall Street Journal and USA Today send their publications by satellite to their printing plants in various parts of the country.

Many publishers are considering other information distribution possibilities such as the delivery of news and information directly to the TV screen or personal computer. The advantage of such information distribution is in its interactive nature: You can talk back to the video "printed page" by requesting more information or by responding or selecting your information according to your own specialized needs.

One of the most interesting examples of an electronic publishing product is the News Retrieval Service of Dow Jones & Company, which distributes financial information. Another is the Nexis service of Mead Corporation's Mead Data Central. Another service, Chemical Abstracts, prints abstracts of research papers and patents.

Some of the major companies that are entering the electronics publishing field are:

• Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith, Inc.

• Sears Roebuck & Co.

• Knight-Ridder News, Inc.

• Citicorp

• Dun & Bradstreet Corporation

• Gannett Company

• C. Nielsen & Company

• Scholastic, Inc.

• Simon & Schuster, Inc.

• Prentice-Hall, Inc.

• McGraw-Hill Book Company

Electronic publishing, however, is not expected to replace print. Prentice-Hall, for example, sold over SI5 million in books about personal computers in one year. Thus, even new technologies require print materials to explain what they are about.

Journalism

The term "journalism" was once limited to the profession of writing for newspapers and magazines. Today journalists work in broadcasting, for public relations firms or departments, for advertising agencies, for public affairs departments of schools, colleges, and other nonprofit organizations, and for government agencies. Journalists work primarily as reporters, feature writers, specialist writers, editors, critics, and copywriters. Other jobs include sports editor, movie critic, classified and advertising editor, financial editor, foreign correspondent, and weather reporter:

Most Americans receive their news in thirty- and sixty-second time slots on television; but for in-depth coverage of events local, national, and international—many turn to the newspaper.

In the past decade, Watergate and hew technologies have altered career opportunities in the newspaper. The Watergate revelations (and the Hollywood treatment of the reporters Woodward and Bernstein) attracted thousands of young people to journalism studies. Each year these graduates compete fiercely for positions.

Newsrooms and back rooms look different today than they did in the past. Typewriters have been replaced by video display terminals (VDTs), which allow writing and editing to be done electronically. However, reporters still gather news in the time-honored way. To cover a story, they gather all necessary facts, by interviews, research, news sources, and other means. The reporter then returns to the newsroom, writes the story usually to an assigned length, and sends the copy to the desk editor. Or the reporter may phone all the details to a rewriter, who will write the story.

In the early 1980s, the Newspaper Fund Gallup Survey of Journalism Graduates indicated that virtually all of the nation's 166,000 journalism and communications graduates who actively looked for media work were employed within, six months after they finished college.

Daily newspapers took 10.4 percent of the graduates; public relations employed 8.9 percent; advertising hired 8.5 percent; TV stations took 8.8 percent; radio stations, 5.5 percent; weekly newspapers, 4.7 percent; and commercial magazines 2.8 percent. The non-media fields of sales, management, clerical work, and others attracted a quarter of the graduates, 27.3 percent.

More than 75 percent of the graduates who majored in broadcast news or production found jobs on radio and television stations, and nearly 60 percent of the advertising and public relations majors found jobs in their fields.

Nearly 80 percent of those who landed jobs on daily or weekly newspapers specialized in news/editorial studies, and an additional 15 percent of the news majors chose public relations or advertising jobs to begin their careers.

Incidentally, record numbers of women and minority group members are graduating from journalism programs. Women made up 61.6 percent of the class in 1980, compared to 59.6 percent a year earlier and 46.6 percent five years earlier. Minority group members represented 8.8 percent of the graduating class, compared to 8.1 percent a year earlier and 5.5 percent five years earlier.

The Institute for Career Research reports the following variety of experiences reported by journalists:

Journalist A

Over the years I have employed many beginning reporters. Although some first-class reporters have had only a high school education, they were extremely talented and exceedingly interested, with a driving desire to become good journalists.

Basically, even those having college education must have the above qualities too. Other qualifications I want from my reporters include a good command of English and ability to write. You'd be surprised at how many can't spell!

Journalist B

I am a sports nut. I always have' been. At school I liked to play baseball, basketball, and ice hockey. I also liked to write about them. I could write better than I could play.

Once out of school, I covered all local games for the local press. But greener pastures beckoned. A larger paper made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

Journalist C

I am the editor of a small-town biweekly newspaper. We have a business manager, three reporters', a switchboard operator-clerk, an ad salesperson, and an assistant editor. The printing is done by another, larger paper for a fee.

As editor, I not only handle employee relations but cover some community affairs and events. I always take along a camera and double as photographer. I fill in-on other jobs too.

Journalist D

I am an overseas news correspondent for a major U.S. paper. As a correspondent I've met and interviewed top politicians, entertainers, athletes, scientists, astronauts, famous painters, authors, and other notable and influential persons.

Whenever there has been a major happening anywhere in the world these past few years, I've often been one of the correspondents sent from our bureau to cover the story. Sometimes it's been thrilling. Sometimes appalling or terrifying. Sometimes it is easy to analyze and report what's happening. Sometimes it has taken all my intuition, initiative, experience, and courage to discover the really relevant facts and transmit them to my newspaper.

The above excerpts illustrate the variety of journalism careers and their very different challenges. College journalism programs offer an equally wide variety of courses to help prepare you for widely disparate demands. Among them are:

• History of journalism

• Censorship in totalitarian societies

• Law and the press

• Reporting

• Public affairs reporting

• News writing

• News editing

• Editorial management

• Editorial writing

• Foreign news reporting

• Television and radio journalism

• Magazine writing, editing, and publishing

• Magazine feature writing

• Technical writing

• Research methods

• Photojournalism

• Graphic arts

Many journalists work with national and international news reporting services. Two of the largest are United Press International (UPI) and Associated Press (AP).

UPI is a commercial news service. Many newspapers, newsmagazines, and TV and radio stations subscribe to its service both here and abroad.

The AP is owned by various news publications and some TV and radio stations as a cooperative organization. It maintains bureaus in many cities both in the U.S. and overseas.

In conclusion, the following are suggestions from a cross section of working journalists:

• Take political science and government courses

• Know how to use a 35mm camera and develop film

• Gain working experience on a college paper

• Try to get an internship

• Consider your first job as your fifth year of college

• Be persistent and patient

• Don't overlook job opportunities on small weeklies

• If you can't find a job, take one in a related field while waiting for an opening.

Remember, too, that the growth of computer technology means greater streamlining of technical operations within news companies, from accounting to page production. The need is great for talented production managers with technical and news/editorial backgrounds. And as newspapers (and videotext news delivery systems) become more graphically appealing, there will be a need for young people with skills in layout, photography, and art design to produce news pages that are attractive and easy to read.

Special Print Fields

Outside of journalism or consumer publications, many other writing/print job opportunities exist. One large area is the "trade press," magazines, newspapers, and newsletters addressed to industry, professional, and technical audiences. According to the American Business Press, there are more than 2,300 such publications, publishing some 63 million copies collectively. The trade press has many more entry-level positions, and advancement can be- rapid.

Another advantage of writing for the trade press is that reporting requires more depth in writing than does the consumer press. Also the writer has more influence upon his audience, since readers rely upon trade press information in their field.

A trade publication tends to allow you to combine your interests. If you like science, art, or antiques, all three areas have trade publications.

The major trade publication houses are (all in New York):

• GraHa Publications

• Lebhar-Friedman

• Fairchild. Publications

• Billboard Publications

• R. R. Bowker

• Dun and Bradstreet

• McGraw-Hill

• Ziff-Davis Publishing

A major source of information on trade publications is American Business Press, Inc., 205 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017.

One other field of specialty should be mentioned: that of technical writing. Technical writers work for industry, government, and nonprofit organizations, translating technological material and facts into understandable language. Technical writers may prepare brochures, manuals, or complex documents and research papers.

One requirement is basic to all print media careers: You must have something to say!

Just as "software packages" make computer technology work, it is the "message" that is the key to all communications in print. The quality of the message will ensure success in careers in print.