Specific Terminology for Local Newspapers

Headlines

The headline of the newspaper is a heading at the top of an article or page in a newspaper or magazine and is usually the biggest/most current story at the time that the newspaper is being published. This story is usually printed in the biggest lettering and includes a large photograph relating to the story that will cover half -if not more- of the front page. Conventionally, only a few lines if anything will be printed on the front cover of the newspaper and the rest of the story will be continued on the inside pages. Example of a headlines on newspapers are below:

Byline

The byline on a newspaper article gives the date it is published, as well as the name of the writer of the article. This text is usually written in a different, less bold font to the headline and will be sized a lot smaller. As far as discourse structure, the by line is conventionally printer below the headline on a separate line. An example of bylines are below;

Strap-line

A strap-line to a story would be found below the headline at the beginning of the article. This is usually an introductory first line of the article, printed in bold and conventionally slightly bigger than the rest of the story. This is used to grab readers in and give them a taste of what to expect from the following text. An example of a strap-line is below;

Jump line

A jump line on a newspaper is a line of type identifying the page on or from which a newspaper story is continued. For example 'Story continued on page 54.' This is so the reader can easily find the next section of text from the same article. The printed lexis is conventionally a lot smaller that the written article and can also be in bold lettering. It is usually found below the last line of the text. Examples of this are below;