We get a lot of questions here at LINK. Sometimes people want to know how to submit an opinion article (find out here). Sometimes people want to know how we choose our stories (here’s an Inside LINK column I wrote about that).
One of the most common questions we receive is: What’s a staff report? How is that different from a story with a reporter’s byline on it?
In case you have no idea what I’m talking about:
A byline is the name of the person who reported a story. In the story you’re reading right now, the byline is me. If Haley Parnell wrote the story, the byline would be her.
But what if the byline says “staff report”?
If you’re used to newspaper speak, a staff report byline goes on anything we consider to be a brief. If you’re not used to newspaper speak, a brief is a very short story (we’re talking a few paragraphs) about something happening in our community that didn’t require much reporting.
It could be a quick item we wrote when we got a press release about something we want to let the broader community know about. It could be a small item that happened at a city council meeting. It could be a heads up about traffic expected for an event that weekend.
A story with a reporter’s byline on it, in contrast, is longer and generally has more sources. Our reporters are required to speak to at least three people in order to put their name on a story as the byline. These stories are also longer.
A brief is, generally, a few hundred words or less. A reporter byline is normally at least 750 words. It requires digging, finding records or doing interviews and can take anywhere from a full day to a week or more to complete.
You can click here to look at our staff report briefs. As for our reporters’ byline stories, you can look at Haley’s stories here, Kenton’s stories here and Nathan’s stories here.
Long story short: A story with a staff report byline is a quick, short story that didn’t require much reporting, and a story with a reporter’s byline is a longer, more in-depth story that required interviews, research and reporting.
Meghan Goth is LINK nky’s executive editor. Curious about how something works at LINK nky? Email her at mgoth@linknky.com.
Click here to read more Inside LINK columns from Meghan Goth and LINK nky President and CEO Lacy Starling.
