Ethical Reporting and House Style
Reporting – Ethical and Legal Practices
Identify Yourself
Don’t mislead people about who you are or your intentions.
You should make clear that you’re a writer/journalist/content creator gathering
info and quotes for publication
BUT in public settings you can observe without identifying yourself.
Conducting Interviews
Do your best to record all interviews and ALWAYS ask for your source’s
permission to do so – it is illegal to covertly record a conversation.
If a source says something is off-the-record you should honour their request.
BUT if the source backtracks and says something is off-the-record after
they’ve told you about it, it is up to your discretion whether or not you choose
to publish it – think about your ongoing relationship with the source (i.e. are
you better off keeping them as a contact for future information any stories)
and the importance of the information provided (i.e. does including it greatly
improve your story).
Want to put together a piece that’s ready for publication? Follow our house style!
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Headlines
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Maximum of 15 words for headlines/
Use the active voice rather than passive voice. – this will make meaning clearer,
and will keep sentences from becoming too complicated or wordy. For example,
“Scott eats the hamburgers for dinner” (ACTIVE) rather than “For dinner, Scott
eats hamburgers” (PASSIVE).
Use present tense.
Keep language simple, direct and to the point.
Bylines / Teaser Text
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Maximum of 30 words for teaser text.
Include enough information to give an overview of what the article will be about,
but leave out enough detail to make readers want more.
Ask yourself “Would I read this?” and “Why would I read this?” and “How is this
relevant to the USYD community?”
Can be a brief article summary or it can be a punchy joke related to the content.
Think about what works best: if your article is hard hitting and devoid of humour,
probably don’t use humorous teaser text.
When using humour in the headline / byline keep one straight. For example;
funny headline + straight byline, or, straight headline + funny byline.
Be click-worthy without resorting to clickbait tactics.
Multimedia
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When you’re preparing any images or videos, to be embedded in your article,
they should be no wider than 620 pixels.
Do your best to keep your image and video widths consistent, and consider how
they’ll look visually.
Consider the number and length of your images and videos – will the reader
need to scroll too much?
If you’re interviewing someone or working with a press contact, remember to ask
for a photo before or at the time you are conducting the interview.
If you are including a video please do not upload it publically to your own
YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo or other video-sharing platforms (unless previously
discussed and agreed to by Pulp editors)
Required Image Dimensions:
o Header Image – 620px (h) x 230px (w)
o Teaser Image – 300px (h) x 110px (w)
o Author Image – 160px (h) x 160px (w)
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Article Preview, as it will appear on usu.edu.au/pulp
Teaser Image
Headline
Byline / Teaser Text
Article, as it will appear in full
Header
Image
Author
Image
NB: Your Byline / Teaser Text does not appear in the body of the article.
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Content Length
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There’s no set length for articles, but you should try to be succinct and concise.
Short and quickly digestible articles are preferred, but if something warrants a
longer investigation don’t be afraid to give it a go.
On-Screen Layout
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Reading on screen is more difficult than reading on paper.
Keep sentences short and easy to scan.
Break paragraphs into smaller chunks.
Accompany written work with at least one piece of audio-visual media.
If you are embedding any media from an external site (e.g. Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, Vimeo) please provide the embed code AND the source URL.
Numbers
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Online style, all numerals, no text. i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4.
Wherever possible, sentences should not begin with a numeral.
Use a comma between numbers greater than 9999 – i.e. 10,000, 100,000.
For millions of dollars, use $10 million.
For Australian dollars, use $100. For American dollars use $US100.
Apostrophes
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Apostrophes should not be used to indicate a plural, for example, “cow's”.
Use apostrophes to indicate a contraction, for example, “you’re” or “don’t” or to
indicate a possessive, such as “Michael’s car”.
When indicating a possessive in a noun that ends in s, do not add an extra s. i.e.
James’ NOT James’s.
Never use an apostrophe in, for example, the 1960s. The contracted form of
1960s is “the ‘60s”.
Dates
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Dates should be day-month-year. E.g. 2 August 2002 not “the 2nd of August”.
Spelling
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Always use standard Australian spelling, for example: colour not color, travelling
not traveling, catalogue not catalog, and organising not organizing.
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Titles and Honorifics
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Dr, Ms, Mr, etc should not have a full-stop.
Acronyms
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NSW, QC and other acronyms should not have full-stops between letters and
should not have apostrophes for plurals, for example: QCs is correct.
Nouns and Synonyms
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Minimise use of capital letters and only use them to start proper nouns.
Collective nouns take singular verbs and pronouns - for example, CSIRO “is” not CSIRO “are”.
When writing news, avoid synonyms of “said” such as “added”.
Punctuation
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Use double quotation marks around direct quotes (“This is a quote,” says Tom)
and single marks for quotes within quotes (“Tom said ‘This is a quote’,” says
Bob).
Use single quotation marks for scare quotes or ironic quotes. e.g. “The so-called
‘masculine’ man.”
Punctuation goes inside quotation marks for a quoted full sentence but outside
for a quoted part sentence. For example:
“I am so hungry I could eat a horse,” he said.
He said he was so hungry he could “eat a horse”.
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Sources
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Always attribute matters of fact to a source. Use direct quotes to give authority.
Wherever possible verify information with more than one source.
If you’re using stats, please rely on credible up-to-date sources only, and
wherever possible link to this source.
If you’re quoting another publication, identify this clearly and link to the original
publication if possible. e.g. “I’ve always been very positive,” Tony Abbot told the
Sydney Morning Herald.
When introducing a source for the first time in your article provide a reasonable
degree of identifying information, more if the person is not commonly known. e.g.
Federal Senator Carol Brown
Give the right of reply – if you or one of your sources is critical of an organisation
or individual, that organisation or individual should be given the opportunity to
respond to or address said criticism. Please also provide a reasonable timeframe
to reply.
Links
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Link text should always describe what the user will see when they click on it.
It should never be "Click Here", "Here", or the URL itself.
Check your links; make sure that they work.
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