Tips for Cutting Stories – Whether Wire or Local

(Even if you have no plans ever to be an editor, as a reporter you are going to be asked to cut your own stories – either for another edition of the paper that does not need the longer version or for the Web.)

• A good editor should be able to turn a longish story into a shorter version or even a brief that is still dense with information.

• If you have the time, always read the full story before editing it for length.
• This is actually a good rule even if you are not cutting the story. If you have the time, read the story while sitting on your hands.
• If you are trimming long stories into a shorter version or boiling them down to a brief you need to:
• Carefully condense the text but keep the key elements.
• Don’t just chop it off at the bottom – many stories are not written in the inverted pyramid.
• Often late in stories – especially the way many are written these days – there are key points that need to be retained.
• Keep an eye out for:
• For long quotes that can be boiled down or even paraphrased.
• Weak, say-nothing quotes that can be cut.
• Redundant passages and comments that say same the same thing a second or third time.
• Don’t cut good, telling quotes – look for the bland and inconsequential
• Cut all repetition and unnecessary attribution.
• Cut all muddiness.
• Of course, this requires some critical thinking about what is unclear muddy writing.
• But note: Wire copy is especially known for verbosity and repeating longwinded passages from over-written bureaucratic statements and press releases.
• Cut away all needless words.
• Translate jargon, but make sure in doing so you do not inject any inaccuracies into the story.
• Whack any clichés. Use clear, simple English. This, of course, is something you always should do with any story.
• Remove background – but don’t lose relevant context
• With wire stories, change any non-U.S. or non-regional terms into understandable English. (For example: Translate metrics; translate currency into dollars; add locations or directions if the story is about a place your readers do not know about; translate words that do not have the same meaning in American English or are not familiar to American readers:
• e.g.
• To table a bill in Britain means to revive it, but in the U.S. it means to kill it from further consideration.
• Lorry in Britain means truck.
• Shag in Britain does not refer to a kind of rug popular in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s.
• If a Canadian says “I got a needle,” she means “I got a shot.”
• Watch out – don’t cut first references or move second references before the first ref.
• When you think you are done, comb back through your story to check:
• For first refs problems
• To see if numbers still add up
• To see how it flows
• To see if there are any holes a reader would spot