Cherubs learn lingo

By Elizabeth Rowe

Sitting in her first cherub lecture, Alexa Fogler, a cherub from Cincinnati, wasn’t sure why the instructors were talking about slugs.

“At journalism camp, slug doesn’t just refer to a bug,” Fogler said. “It means a one-word title for your story. It’s a good system that works well. I plan on bringing it home to my staff for organizational purposes.”

During the program, cherubs learn new journalism terminology to help them in organizing, gathering and packaging information into stories.

When Lorraine Lee arrived at the cherubs program, she had never heard the term "SOT."  Five weeks and three broadcast labs later, that changed.

“I honestly didn’t know what a SOT was,” Lee said. “The abbreviation didn’t make that much sense to me, but now I know it’s a sound byte.”

Erika Mahoney, a cherub from Boulder, Colo., learned a series of terms that will help her in future interviews when a source wishes not to be named.  Both “NFA” and “on background” are terms that sometimes confuse young reporters.

But Mahoney learned that “on background” means the journalist can pursue further sources based on the given information, whereas “not for attribution” is anonymous. Mahoney said these terms will be helpful in future articles, because both are better alternatives than "off the record," which means the information disclosed cannot be used in any way.

“I knew what ‘off the record’ was, but I was always unclear about the words ‘not for attribution’ and ‘on background,’ ” Mahoney said. “Especially for these words, it’s important that you know them in case you’re ever in a situation where the source wants or needs to be anonymous.”    

Grady Page, a cherub from Washington, D.C., was confused about the term “nut graph” for much of his time at cherubs. A nut graph is the paragraph that focuses the story following the lead in a features piece. Fortunately, Page learned to write a nut graph and said it will help him organize articles in years to come.

“I learned what a nut graph is on my fifth-to-last day at cherubs,” Page said. “It will help me write trend stories in the future.”

When Fahim Hashmi, a cherub from Vero Beach, Fla., arrived at Northwestern, he hadn’t heard of kickers, and he wasn’t sure what the 30 symbol at the end of articles meant.

“I didn’t know what a kicker was,” said Hashmi. “It’s lingo that you need if you want to go into journalism, just like that '30' symbol. I didn’t know that either, but you just need to know these things. A kicker is basically something that you put at the end of a long feature to round off your article and not just summarize. You end with a bang.”

Hashmi said now he knows to put a 30 after each story to indicate that it’s the end. This way, the editors know that they’re not missing any information.

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