Newspapers

With the intention of acquiring a better understanding of how the world of journalism works, I decided to have a brief look into how newspapers work on a general basis, whilst perhaps picking up some editorial jargon.

What primarily makes the news are stories which may relate something the public would find different to the norm, the fatuity of distinguished figures, mechanical failures and natural disasters. What we read for the most part comes from reports, whose work is to obtain information through research and sources and to deliver it to the public as best and accurately as they can. There are different methods of reporting, one of which is when the reporter is assigned to a beat. Reports appointed to a beat will basically be working on a specific sector/issue or organisation over a period of time. This allows the reported to obtain a broader knowledge of their topic allowing for better coverage when reporting. Such work allows for clear differentiation between the work produced by the reporters appointed to beats and the reporters who are covering similar stories from time to time. On the other hand we have ‘General assignment reporters’, these are the reporters who are sent out to cover stories such as accidents and human interest stories. However often reporters deviate from general assignment reporting to beat reporting and vice versa.

Newspapers are produced, without fail, every single day of the year, and to make each edition involves an extensive team working together. The ‘Executive Editor’ is the person responsible for the news division. The ‘Managing Editor’ administrates the day-to-day work of the news division. Either called the City Editor or the Metro Editor, we have the person who all the reporters work for directly. The Editors are also the people who write and come up with the headlines, not the journalists. The City/Metro Editor is responsible for assigning stories and enforcing deadlines. He/She is the first to see the raw copy of the newspaper before it is put on sale, and it is this person with the ultimate say of what will or what will not appear on the newspaper.

Editorial pages in a newspaper are the pages in the newspapers which are not delivering news, rather they are delivering opinions on facts. Either criticizing or praising performances of perhaps politicians, school boards etc. Letters to the editor are found in the editorial pages and are one of the best read pages in almost all newspapers, this is I imagine relates to the subconscious of people wanting to know what their counterparts are thinking.

It is standard for newspapers too print slightly more advertising than news. Advertising may count for sixty percent of the newspapers week day content. However when it comes to Sunday editions it is not unusual for news articles to take up more space than advertisements. This of course is for obvious reasons, newspapers make their money off advertisement and need the funding to run. Apparently editors refer to the space left for printing journalism as the ‘news hole’.

In regards to the process of printing, I shall use a quote below by Bob Wilson, off the website howstuffworks.com, which simply summarizes the process.

Most daily newspapers have moved to some form of offset printing. This process etches the image of a newspaper onto their aluminium plates. (Pages with colour photos or type require extra plates) These plates, now bearing a positive image developed from a full page photographic negative, then go to other specialists for mounting on the press. The process is called offset printing because the metal plates do not touch the paper going through the press. Instead the plates transfer their linked image to a rubber roller, which in turn prints the page.

Another new thing I learnt about newspapers which I found particularly interesting was that in large countries such as America, big newspapers may publish, two, three or even four editions of their newspaper, and this reflects the speed of newspaper publication and their intention of being as up to date with the news as possible. The first edition will be distributed to the outskirts of the newspapers circulation. The second edition, with fresher news than the first will hit closer areas and lastly the final edition is printed, with the latest news and copies of this edition are produced for the main cities.