Computerised News Editing System

ABSTRACT

Those people out there, who are familiar with journalism will better appreciate how difficult it is to produce or develop well edited news .

This project Design and implementation of a computerized News Editing system, distinguish itself as it provides solution to the teaming problems facing today’ journalist as for as news editing is concerned.  

The concept of this project is divided into five (5) chapters which gave an ample opportunity for the study of the existing system in order to be able to design a new system that is far better than the former system.

In this work, I looked at the traditional news editing system with a view to implementing of a new editing system which will ease the works of news editor in the field of journalism.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The advent of computer Technology has completely changed the way things are done globally. These effects of computer Technology can be in all field of study, consequently giving birth to the automation of process of activities in this study will seek to usher in automation of the news editing system. It is believed that the traditional news editing system is grossly inefficient and   ineffective. These have been the reason behind the epileptic news presented on daily basis by journalists to their teaming audience globally.  

This study is carried out with the view of designing a new system that will take good care of the ineffectiveness that characterized the existing system and automation of the entire process of news editing by doing this we don’t have to be there to gather news, it can be done through the help of calls, internet, YouTube which makes it easy for the masses, instead of going to buy newspaper from the vendor, they can read the news through their internet or phones. 

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, editor come from the Latin phrase “editus’’ which means “to put forward’’.  Therefore, News Editing is the process of preparing language, News, for presentation to the audience, through correction, condensation, organization and other modification.  News editing ensures that News is of good quality. In large media houses, experienced writers are dedicated to the News editing function.

News items can be gathered manually through so many sources or methods which include official records, Archives, journals, documentaries, tipsters or those you can also call experts, eyewitnesses, publication or broadcasts, officials in government or business, organizations or corporations, information gathered from other media like newspaper and people involved with or affected by a new event or issue.

The old and traditional way of editing news has some problems that make them inefficient and ineffective compared to the new system of editing news and these includes:

1.                 The documentaries gathered might have unlimited information that the news editor might find very hard to work with.

2.                 The tipsters or experts in news editing are very hard to find.

3.                 Other media houses like newspapers and eyewitnesses may be unreliable because they can present non-authentic information.

4.                 It was very stressfully and time consuming to edit news manually in the sense that sometimes, you have to be at the crime scene to gather information manually. But this new system deals with computability, complexity and correctness. And all these will be discussed as we go further into this work.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The problems that characterized the existing system are actually responsible for the fall in the quality of news production and presentation. The problems with the existing system include:

i)                   Reviewing of reports submitted by reporters on the field

ii)                Identification of errors in the reports, this includes: grammatical errors, spelling errors, punctuation errors etc.

iii)              Condensation of reports into meaningful and concise piece

iv)              Organization of the reports in an orderly manner for presentation to the audience.

v)                And other modifications.

1.3     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Like other studies or projects carried out on various issues in different fields of human endeavor, globally, the purpose of this study is as follows:

1.                 This study will try to find out new ways of reviewing reports that are far better than the existing method

2.                 To seek a way of editing News that will take less time when compared to the former or traditional method, existing system.

3.                 This study will try to discover methods of improving the quality of edited piece of news done by the editor.

4.                 The purpose of this study is to uncover an easier way of correcting the errors commonly found in reports from the field directly.

1.4     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The aim of this study (NTA) is to design a new system that will surpass the existing system in the following areas:

-                     Reviewing of reports

-                     Detection of errors

-                     Correction of errors

-                     Summarization of reports

Furthermore this study will aim at automating the entire process of news editing system, which will further enhance News editing in terms of:

-                     Quality

-                     Timeliness

-                     Accuracy

-                     Relevance

-                     Importance

-                     And correctness.

1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of this study will cover all the activities and processes that are involved in News Editing from the submission of news reports to the final News editing process. These will further lead to the design and implementation of a blue print for the automation of news editing system (existing system).

1.6 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

The study was limited by several factors of which some posed serious constraints towards the development of the project. One of the major drawbacks was time because there was not enough time for the research. There were also drawbacks due to financial incapacitation. This is among other frustrations such as inability to procure research materials due to distance. It was difficult to source most of the important information needed for this work.

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS/VARIABLES

Automation – The use of machines or computers to do work that was                                   previously done by people.

News -        An information about something or an event that has happened recently.

Editing -     The process of preparing a piece of writing by correcting the mistakes, making improvements.

Editor -      A person who edits