Today vs. the day of the week for that paper?

[Daniel Shirley]

What do you guys style-wise with the days of the week, today, etc?
Throughout my nearly 20 years in the business, we've used "today" for that day's paper. Ex: today's games for the Friday games in Friday's paper.
That's not AP style, but it's the way every paper I've worked at has done it.
Now we're switching to just using the days of the week, so it would be Friday's games in Friday's paper. Just wondered what everyone else does.
I'm not going to make a big issue over it or try to fight it (again, been in the business long enough to know when to pick my fights).

On a side topic, I've noticed when we go north to visit my wife's family, a lot of the papers use tomorrow or yesterday. I had never seen that in the South.

 

[CR19]

What do you guys style-wise with the days of the week, today, etc?
Throughout my nearly 20 years in the business, we've used "today" for that day's paper. Ex: today's games for the Friday games in Friday's paper.
That's not AP style, but it's the way every paper I've worked at has done it.
Now we're switching to just using the days of the week, so it would be Friday's games in Friday's paper. Just wondered what everyone else does.
I'm not going to make a big issue over it or try to fight it (again, been in the business long enough to know when to pick my fights).

On a side topic, I've noticed when we go north to visit my wife's family, a lot of the papers use tomorrow or yesterday. I had never seen that in the South.

You could go either way. Personally, I use the actual days of the week since I'm at a weekly. However, if you're writing for a daily, today and tomorrow would make sense.

 

[Ace]

What do you guys style-wise with the days of the week, today, etc?
Throughout my nearly 20 years in the business, we've used "today" for that day's paper. Ex: today's games for the Friday games in Friday's paper.
That's not AP style, but it's the way every paper I've worked at has done it.
Now we're switching to just using the days of the week, so it would be Friday's games in Friday's paper. Just wondered what everyone else does.
I'm not going to make a big issue over it or try to fight it (again, been in the business long enough to know when to pick my fights).

On a side topic, I've noticed when we go north to visit my wife's family, a lot of the papers use tomorrow or yesterday. I had never seen that in the South.

I think more papers are switching to the day of the week -- mainly to be less confusing online.

 

[Daniel Shirley]

Yeah, that's the reasoning, I think. But it's going to be confusing in the section when it's been done one way for so many years. Not worth a battle, but I told our news editor if he tries to make me us RBIs or say Heat, Tide is (it's ARE), we're going to have problems. haha.

 

[Ace]

Yeah, that's the reasoning, I think. But it's going to be confusing in the section when it's been done one way for so many years. Not worth a battle, but I told our news editor if he tries to make me us RBIs or say Heat, Tide is (it's ARE), we're going to have problems. haha.

Well, I like RBIs and think singular team names should be singular. So it would be a throwdown!

 

[Daniel Shirley]

Indeed. Haha. Guess that proves the point that it's not worth fighting about. If two people as intelligent as we are can disagree on it ...

 

[zebracoy]

I told our news editor if he tries to make me us RBIs or say Heat, Tide is (it's ARE), we're going to have problems. haha.

Shirley, you must be joking.

 

[Daniel Shirley]

I never joke, and don't call me Shirley, Hahaha.
But I think my point now is I was going to speak up about this but it's not even worth it. MUCH more important things to worry about, like teaching my son to throw a curveball.

 

[spnited]

I never joke, and don't call me Shirley, Hahaha.
But I think my point now is I was going to speak up about this but it's not even worth it. MUCH more important things to worry about, like teaching my son to throw a curveball.

If your son in younger than 12, do not teach hm to throw a curveball. Teach him a change up. No strain on the elbow and Little League age kids can't come close to hitting it.

 

[Ace]

I never joke, and don't call me Shirley, Hahaha.
But I think my point now is I was going to speak up about this but it's not even worth it. MUCH more important things to worry about, like teaching my son to throw a curveball.

These are really just issues of the paper's style. Reasonable people can disagree, but in the end you need to be consistent.

And don't teach your kid a curveball before he's 12.

 

[deskslave]

Yeah, with copy going online, it's much more important to use the day of the week. It's easy to figure out which day's paper you're holding, but it can be quite a bit trickier to figure out which day a story was posted to a website. Usually, it's in tiny font somewhere, and it's never in the same place from site to site.

Not to mention you might have a story that appears in Friday's paper but gets posted to the website at 11 on Thursday night.

 

[WolvEagle]

We've gone to the day of the week online, but still use yesterday, today and tomorrow in print. We print three days a week. For calendar listings (car shows, golf outings, etc.), we use dates only.

I think, eventually, we'll use the day of the week in print, too. It's so damned confusing to go back and forth.

 

[BTExpress]

They made us swtch to days of week for online purposes.

But oftentimes we have a half-column pf space (paper is a 9-column grid, which in effect is a 4 1/2-column grid) in which to put something (schedule of games, breakout box, quote, etc.).

A "Wednesday's games" headline in 5 picas just does not work. And I will not break "Wednesday" oer into two lines. Or "Saturday:.

So sometimes I cheat and say "Today"

 

[Daniel Shirley]

Ace, you're right on and about the curveball, too. No way will I let him throw one before then. His arm just isn't ready.

 

[SoCalDude]

We've always been today for today, but never tomorrow or yesterday. A few months ago, because of the Web, they made us change to the actual day Monday, Tuesday, etc. in all references.
There was a lot of grumbling and then they said it was OK to use TODAY in standing heads and labels. Hell, our sports page 2 is named TODAY and has all the listings and calendars.
It lasted about a week and it wasn't even the sports guys who complained the most. It was the entertainment people who do calendar listings, etc. They changed it back to the real newspaper way.

 

[SF_Express]

If you have any kind of website, just let this one go. It's the way of the, well, not future. The way of now.

Presumably, people can read you from all over the world, and for them, it might not be today. And if they read it online Friday and it happened Thursday, it's not today, either.

Day of the week clears up an misconceptions. It happened on that day in the place where it, er, happened.

(I make my living with words.)