Depth of Field

     Photographers have to know how much of their picture will be in focus. They worry about depth of field: too little depth of field, and you can see Aunt Marge, but the Eiffel Tower behind her is blurry. Too much depth of field, and the Eiffel Tower is in sharp focus, but so are 300 other tourists, and Aunt Marge is lost among them.

     A good newspaper story has just the right depth of field: enough of the picture is in focus to put the story in context – Aunt Marge was in Paris. Enough background is there to know why the story matters, but the point doesn’t get lost. An editor should be able to use a photographer’s eye to gauge the depth of field.

Getting Too Close to the Subject

     Many stories appear to be written from too far "inside" – written for sources rather than about them. Take a step back and think about what may be lurking just out of range. Often the picture excludes the readers, and what the story means for them.

    An example is a story that talks about budgets and how much is being spent on programs and never says a) what effect that might have on taxes or b) whether a cut of $1 million in the parks budget comes from staff, or plantings, or new playground equipment. Political stories also many times fail to say what this fight or that vote means for the reader. The writer has not stepped back enough for the reader to see the forest instead of the tree.
 
 
         Clues that a story is written from inside the box can include a lot of bureaucratic jargon, few quotations from outside the "circle of sources," or no break in narrative to put the story in perspective.
 

 Look for What’s in the Background

    This is really another way of gauging how close the story is to the subject. A story talks about a reduction in the number of police officers, and deals with it in terms of budget savings, political ramifications, how the size of the force has fluctuated over the years, etc.,  accompanied by much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
 
         To see if something might be hiding in the background, visualize the story, including only what is specifically mentioned in the story.
To see what might be missing, follow the thread from inside the picture to outside, until you snag the images that add context.

      What’s mentioned in the above story? Police officers, budgets, politics. Is there something missing? Follow the thread: What do police officers do (besides eat a lot of donuts)? They protect the public. Will a reduction in police officers mean the public is less protected? Does the story deal with the question directly? Or is it only hinted at? Often, it takes only a sentence to add the necessary depth of field.

Double Focus

    If a reporter has a habit of presenting a fact or situation then immediately using a contrasting verb or image ("but," "however," "on the other hand,") it sometimes is a clue that the story or sentence needs refocusing.

       After nearly three years of promising to sharply increase the number of air traffic controllers at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center, the Federal Aviation Administration has increased the number of fully qualified controllers only slightly, but it has recently hired dozens of apprentices and says it has doubled efforts to train them.
        One goal of adding controllers is to reduce the center's overtime budget. Overtime there consumes one-third of all the overtime spent on air traffic in a seven-state region, F.A.A. managers say, but they plan to cut the budget by one-fourth this year.
        But to accomplish the increased training, top officials of the F.A.A. have increased the number of supervisors by about one-third. ...

      What is supposed to be the focus of the story? The reporter has shifted focus so many times, it’s hard to tell.
 
         Think of each such "negative contrast" word as a head turn in a tennis match. How sore does your neck get? Too many turns, and the reader won’t know what the point was.
 

The Moving Picture
     This relates more to a lede than to a whole story, but it can come in handy. Try this one:
 

A pending appeal put a halt Friday to the state's request that convicted killer Danny Rolling's former fiancee face sanctions for not complying with a judge's order to turn over money from the sale of Rolling stories and merchandise.
 

 
      If there are more than 3 or 4 verb or "action" images in a sentence, it may be time to back up.

    This sentence also suffers from "tennis match syndrome," with many "negative contrasts." Some of the verbs are negatives – "put a halt," "not complying" – and some are positive – "request," "face sanctions." Each contrast requires the reader to change direction, and pretty soon the reader is dizzy.

Pictures by the Numbers

     Numbers are good, but not in large numbers. In business stories, they’re sometimes necessary, but in nonfinancial matters, sometimes too many numbers can obscure the focus.

In a study done from random samples on the amount of litter the county accumulated in the past year, Keep Nassau Beautiful Inc. found that there was an 108 percent increase in the amount of street litter and an 85 percent increase in loading dock litter.
However, there was a 100 percent decrease in parking lot trash and a 50 percent decrease in trash near Dumpsters, as observed from the random samples of Nassau County areas.

 
      Numbers, especially percentage changes, usually cannot be understood without some perspective. If a story throws a lot of numbers around, make sure there are words and images to back them up.

     Number Overuse Syndrome often occurs in stories about polls or surveys. Make sure the numbers are in some context, presented with explanations, results or analysis. Otherwise,
you have a picture with no point.
.
The "Artistic" Photographer
(with thanks to David W. Dunlap)
 

       Elvira Brown's aging face seems almost to be a map of the parched, weatherbeaten Texas countryside that has been her home for 83 years.
  Through the eyes that squint in the harsh sunlight, she has seen Dallas grow from a tiny cowtown into a midland capital. The street outside of her tiny  house used to be nothing more than a dust trail in summer and a mudhole in winter.
            Years ago, she would sit on this porch and watch cattle drives pass. Today, a  procession of quite a different sort passed along the now-paved course.
            It was a motorcade. It flew by at top speed on its way to Parkland Memorial Hospital. Top speed because, it seems, the President of the United States was inside. And he was dead.
 

                                          -30-

1) Does the lede work?
· Is it supported in the story?
· If it’s an anecdote, does it really reflect the point of the story, or is it
 just a nice anecdote?
 
2) What's the point of the story?
· Is the point clear?
· Is a nut graf needed?
· Is the point clear early in the story, or does the reader have to wait?
 
3) Does the story make sense?
· Does it flow logically from one section to another, or does it play
 leap-frog?
· Is there just enough information, too much or too little?
 
4) Is it fair?
· Are both sides equally represented?
· When a "spin" is intended, is it overly sympathetic or mean?
· Are racial, sexual, religious, ethnic, etc., references relevant? Is that relevance clearly established in the story? Is it applied equally to all people in the story?
 
5) Is the writer's voice intact?
· When an image doesn’t work, do you replace as few words as possible?
· Is the writer using "voice" in place of "reporting"?
· Are you renovating or rewriting the story?
· If YOU were the writer, how would YOU feel about these changes?
 
6)  Do the numbers add up?
· Does the math work?
· Are they comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges?
· Do the numbers show what they think they’re showing?
· Is there context and relevance to the numbers, or are they just numbers?