# -30-

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Notation used by journalists

This article is about the "end of story" mark. For the series finale of The Wire, see [-30- (The Wire)](/source/-30-_(The_Wire)). For the 1959 film, see [*-30-* (film)](/source/-30-_(film)).

The editor of the [Jerome War Relocation Center](/source/Jerome_War_Relocation_Center)'s newspaper writing the number on a blackboard following the printing of its last edition in 1944

**-30-** has been traditionally used by journalists in [North America](/source/North_America) to indicate the end of a story or article that is submitted for [editing](/source/Editing) and [typesetting](/source/Typesetting). It is commonly employed when writing on [deadline](/source/Time_limit) and sending bits of the story at a time, via telegraphy, teletype, electronic transmission, or paper copy, as a necessary way to indicate the end of the article.[1] It is also found at the end of [press releases](/source/Press_release).

The origin of the term is unknown.[1][2] One theory is that the journalistic employment of -30- originated from the number's use during the [American Civil War](/source/American_Civil_War) era in the [92 Code](/source/92_Code) of [telegraphic](/source/Telegraphy) shorthand, where it signified the end of a transmission[3] and that it found further favor when it was included in the [Phillips Code](/source/Phillips_Code) of abbreviations and short markings for common use that was developed by the [Associated Press](/source/Associated_Press) wire service. Telegraph operators familiar with numeric [wire signals](/source/Wire_signal) such as the 92 Code used these [railroad](/source/Railroad) codes to provide [logistics](/source/Logistics) instructions and [train orders](/source/Train_order_operation), and they adapted them to notate an article's priority or confirm its transmission and receipt. This [metadata](/source/Metadata) would occasionally appear in print when [typesetters](/source/Typesetters) included the codes in newspapers,[1] especially the code for "No more – the end", which was presented as "-30-" on a [typewriter](/source/Typewriter).

## See also

- [Tombstone (typography)](/source/Tombstone_(typography))

- [End-of-file](/source/End-of-file)

- [End-of-transmission character](/source/End-of-transmission_character)

- [###](/source/Triple_number_sign)

## References

1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-AJR_1-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-AJR_1-1) [***c***](#cite_ref-AJR_1-2) Kogan, Hadass (2007). ["So Why Not 29?"](https://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=4408). *[American Journalism Review](/source/American_Journalism_Review)*. No. 87. [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20101212101705/http://ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4408) from the original on 2010-12-12. Retrieved 2016-05-22.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** Melton, Rob (2008). ["The Newswriter's Handbook: The Word: origin of the end mark -30-"](https://web.archive.org/web/20151129191926/http://jea.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/stylebook.pdf) (PDF). Journalism Education Association. p. 9. Archived from [the original](http://jea.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/stylebook.pdf) (PDF) on 2015-11-29. Retrieved 2016-05-22.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** ["WESTERN UNION "92 CODE" & WOOD'S "TELEGRAPHIC NUMERALS""](http://www.civilwarsignals.org/pages/tele/wurules1866/92code.html). Signal Corps Association. 1996. Retrieved 2008-02-25.

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [-30-](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-30-) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-30-?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.