Glossary · thirty-seven working definitions
How to read these entries
Journalism vocabulary is unstable. The same word can mean one thing in a broadcast newsroom and another in a magazine, and some terms carry a legal meaning quite separate from their editorial one. Each entry below therefore states the working sense used in these chapters, and flags the cases where the usage genuinely varies between houses or where a legal meaning exists that only a qualified professional can apply.
Terms are listed alphabetically rather than by subject, because that is how a reader arriving from a chapter will look for them. Where an entry matters enough to have its own chapter, the relevant subject or lesson is the better place to start; the definition here is the short form.
A to Z
- Attribution
- The words that tie a statement to the person, body or record it came from. Attribution is part of the fact, not decoration around it, and in hard news it belongs in the first three paragraphs.
- Background briefing
- An exchange in which information may be used but the person may not be quoted or named. Its exact meaning varies between newsrooms, which is why the terms are agreed in words each time.
- Braid
- A feature structure that alternates two or three strands, such as one person's experience against an institutional process. It fails when the switch between strands is left unmarked.
- Byline
- The line naming who wrote a piece. Some publishers use collective or desk attribution instead, which is a choice about accountability rather than modesty.
- Caption
- The text beneath an image stating who or what is shown, where and when. A caption is a factual claim and is corrected like any other when wrong.
- Contempt
- Conduct that interferes with the administration of justice, including publication capable of prejudicing a pending trial. What amounts to contempt is a legal question for a qualified professional.
- Copy
- The text of a story as written and edited, from first draft to the version signed off for publication.
- Correction
- A published statement that a specific fact was wrong, what the correct position is, and where the error appeared. It is distinct from a clarification, which changes emphasis, and a retraction, which withdraws a claim.
- Crash blossom
- A headline that can be parsed in two ways because compressed grammar has made a noun and a verb interchangeable. Reading the first three words aloud finds most of them.
- Defamation
- A published statement carrying a meaning damaging to the reputation of an identifiable person. In Ireland the governing statute is the Defamation Act 2009; whether a defence applies is a matter for a solicitor.
- Doorstep
- Approaching somebody without an appointment, usually at a home or workplace. It requires a justification proportionate to the intrusion and a decision above reporter level in most newsrooms.
- Embargo
- A condition attached to advance material specifying the time before which it may not be published. Accepting an embargo is a promise; publishing early breaks it and usually ends future access.
- Fact-check
- The procedure of testing each assertion in a draft against evidence, recording the evidence, and matching every unresolved claim to a hedge in the text.
- Field notes
- A contemporaneous record made at a location, keeping verbatim speech, direct observation and the reporter's own inference visually separate.
- Freedom of information request
- A request for records held by a public body, made under the Freedom of Information Act 2014 in Ireland, subject to the exemptions and procedures that Act sets out.
- Furniture
- Everything around the body text: headline, standfirst, sub-deck, captions, pull quotes and panels. Furniture makes claims and must be supportable by the text beneath it.
- Hard news
- A report of something that has happened, written so that a reader who stops after two paragraphs is not misled.
- Headline count
- The character budget a headline is written to, whether a physical measure in print or a truncation limit in lists and previews.
- Hourglass
- A structure that opens with the essential facts and then switches to chronology. It suits incidents where the sequence carries the meaning.
- Inverted pyramid
- A news structure that places the most consequential material first and the least last, so the piece can be cut from the bottom without rewriting.
- Kicker
- A short line above a headline giving the section, series or topic. It sets the reader's expectation and should not carry a claim of its own.
- Lede
- The opening sentence of a news story, carrying one idea and usually between twenty and thirty-five words. Also spelled lead in many houses.
- Nut graf
- The paragraph in a feature stating why the piece exists and why now, usually placed between the third and eighth paragraph.
- Off the record
- An agreement that nothing said may be published unless it is separately confirmed elsewhere. Terms must be agreed before the words are spoken.
- On the record
- An agreement that the person may be named and quoted directly. It is the default only where it has actually been stated and understood.
- Primary source
- The record made by the body that took the action, held the meeting or produced the dataset. Everything describing that record is secondary, including a press release about it.
- Public interest
- The justification offered for reporting that intrudes on privacy or confidentiality. It is a reasoned argument about benefit to the public, not a synonym for interesting to the public.
- Pull quote
- A short extract set in larger type to signal the voice of a piece. It must not alter the meaning of the sentence it came from.
- Right of reply
- A real opportunity, before publication, for a person or body facing adverse material to respond to its substance, with the approach and deadline recorded.
- Room tone
- Thirty seconds of location sound recorded with nobody speaking, used to cover edits so a cut is not audible.
- Sidebar
- A short separate piece running alongside a main story to carry background, a list or an explainer that would otherwise interrupt the narrative.
- Standfirst
- The short block under a headline that sets up the piece and states its scope. It extends the headline rather than repeating it.
- Style guide
- A publisher's written record of the choices that have no correct answer, from numerals and dates to how a person's own self-description is used.
- Sub-editing
- The work of checking and finishing copy: structure, accuracy against notes, language and house style, furniture, and the legal and ethical read.
- Transcript
- A written record of recorded speech, corrected by hand for names, place names, figures and technical terms before it is relied upon.
- Verification log
- A table with one row per atomised claim, recording the evidence sought, what was found, the document identifier or timestamp, the date checked and the outcome.
- Vox pop
- A series of short interviews with members of the public on one question. It requires the same identification and consent as any other interview and proves nothing statistically.
Terms this site deliberately avoids
Some vocabulary is left out on purpose. The desk does not describe its chapters as a course, a programme, a module, a curriculum credit or a qualification, because none of those words would be accurate: nothing here is assessed and nothing is awarded. The word curriculum appears only as the name of the subject index, and the page itself states that it is a reading order rather than a registered programme.
The desk also avoids the language of certainty around law. Chapters say that a statute governs a question and that a qualified professional decides its application; they do not say that something is lawful, safe or defensible. That restriction is why several entries above end by pointing at a solicitor rather than at a definition.
Where the vocabulary comes from
Most of these terms are ordinary newsroom usage, documented in published style and standards material and in the codes that Irish journalism works with, including the Press Council of Ireland code of practice and the National Union of Journalists code of conduct. Where a term relates to a statutory scheme, such as a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2014, the definition describes the practical route rather than the statutory text.
Using the glossary well
- Check the entry before assuming a term means what your newsroom means by it.
- Where the entry flags variation, agree the meaning explicitly with whoever you are working with.
- Treat every legal term as a signpost to a qualified professional, not as a definition you can rely on.
- Read the linked subject chapter where a term carries a whole procedure behind it.
- Write your own house definitions where you need a settled version for a team.