Oct 5, 2007
Why did print reportters end their stories with -30- ?
Each October for the past eight years, students in Louise Reynolds' Introduction to Journalism class at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland, have been offered extra credit if they can solve one of journalism's lingering mysteries: Why did reporters for years end their stories by writing "-30-"?
"Journalism is so full of funny phrases and traditions," Reynolds says. "I wanted the kids to know there was a long tradition behind each of these terms and style rules and know that it didn't come out of nowhere."
The use of the symbol was once so prevalent that it made its way into Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, which says 30 is "a sign of completion." But the tradition of using it to cap off a piece of sprightly copy dropped off considerably when the computer replaced the typewriter — the what? — in America's newsrooms. So it's a term whose meaning is lost on many younger journalists.
The venerable "-30-" caused some mischief in late July at the New York Times when a reporter typed it at the end of his article about the shooting of two police officers in Brooklyn. The published version of the story said that a trial was scheduled for February 30, which doesn't occur even in the leapest of leap years. Said a subsequent Times correction: "The error occurred when an editor saw the symbol '-30-' typed at the bottom of the reporter's article and combined it with the last word, 'February.'"
So where did the term originate? Some say the mark began during a time when stories were submitted via telegraph, with "-30-" denoting "the end" in Morse code. Another theory suggests that the first telegraphed news story had 30 words. Others claim the "-30-" comes from a time when stories were written in longhand — X marked the end of a sentence, XX the end of a paragraph and XXX meant the end of a story. The Roman numerals XXX translate to 30....
"Journalism is so full of funny phrases and traditions," Reynolds says. "I wanted the kids to know there was a long tradition behind each of these terms and style rules and know that it didn't come out of nowhere."
The use of the symbol was once so prevalent that it made its way into Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, which says 30 is "a sign of completion." But the tradition of using it to cap off a piece of sprightly copy dropped off considerably when the computer replaced the typewriter — the what? — in America's newsrooms. So it's a term whose meaning is lost on many younger journalists.
The venerable "-30-" caused some mischief in late July at the New York Times when a reporter typed it at the end of his article about the shooting of two police officers in Brooklyn. The published version of the story said that a trial was scheduled for February 30, which doesn't occur even in the leapest of leap years. Said a subsequent Times correction: "The error occurred when an editor saw the symbol '-30-' typed at the bottom of the reporter's article and combined it with the last word, 'February.'"
So where did the term originate? Some say the mark began during a time when stories were submitted via telegraph, with "-30-" denoting "the end" in Morse code. Another theory suggests that the first telegraphed news story had 30 words. Others claim the "-30-" comes from a time when stories were written in longhand — X marked the end of a sentence, XX the end of a paragraph and XXX meant the end of a story. The Roman numerals XXX translate to 30....