How newspapers work

 

Long before we had computers, television, radio, telephones and telegraph, newspapers were the cheapest and most efficient way to reach mass audiences with news, commentary and advertising. Newspapers, from their beginnings as hand-printed "broadsheets", have been a true random-access medium - readers can move easily and quickly through the different sections of a newspaper, returning to them days or even weeks later. And because a newspaper's "software" consists of a common language, it possesses a universal and timeless quality. For example, a newspaper published before the American Revolution is as readable today as it was in 1775!

With the growth of television news in the 1960s, newspapers confronted their first formidable competitor. Today, ABC News claims that more Americans get their news from ABC than from any other source - and it's probably true. The United States' 1,600 daily newspapers continue to serve millions of readers, but newspapers are no longer the country's dominant mass medium. How to survive and even flourish in a culture more attuned to electronic media than to printer's ink is the most serious issue facing the newspaper industry as it enters the 21st century.

It is safe to say that newspapers are not about to follow the Morse telegraph into oblivion. Newspapers are a portable, convenient medium. No one lugs a computer monitor to the breakfast table to get the morning news. And, newspapers are proving surprisingly adept at reinventing themselves for today's readers by emphasizing good design, color photography and detailed stories that report and interpret current events.

If you take the time to see how a newspaper reproduces itself every 24 hours, you will find it fascinating! Many different individuals and departments contribute to a process that resembles a river with numerous tributaries. Among these streams are five with daily importance to a newspaper's readers -news, editorial, advertising, production and distribution. Let's look at how these streams merge into a Niagara of words and images flowing through a computer network and onto huge rolls of paper racing through thunderous presses, all while most of us are sleeping.

What Exactly Is News and How Does It Work?

Curiously, for a publication called a newspaper, no one has ever coined a standard definition of news. But for the most part, news usually falls under one broad classification - the abnormal. It is human folly, mechanical failures and natural disasters that often "make the news."

Reporters are a newspaper's front-line eyes and ears. Reporters glean information from many sources, some public, such as police records, and others private, such as a government informant. Occasionally, a reporter will go to jail rather than reveal the name of a confidential source for a news story. American newspapers proudly consider themselves the fourth branch of government - the

Watchdog branch – that exposes legislative, executive and judicial misbehavior.

Some reporters are assigned to beats,or an area of coverage, such as the courts, city hall, education, business, medicine and so forth. Others are called general assignment reporters,which means they are on call for a variety of stories such as accidents, civic events and human-interest stories.

In the movies, reporters have exciting, frenzied and dangerous jobs as they live a famous pronouncement of the newspaper business: "Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." Although a few members of the media have been killed as a result of investigations into wrongdoing, newspaper work for the great majority of reporters is routine. They are our chroniclers of daily life, sorting, sifting and bringing a sense of order to a disorderly world.

All reporters are ultimately responsible to an editor. Depending on its size, a newspaper may have numerous editors, beginning with an executive editor responsible for the news division. Immediately below the executive editor is the managing editor,the person who oversees the day-to-day work of the news division. Other editors - sports, photo, state, national, features and obituary, for example - may also report to the managing editor.

However, the best known and in some ways the most crucial editor is the city editor. This is the editor that reporters work for directly. The city editor assigns stories, enforces deadlines and is the first to see reporters' raw copy. These editors are called gatekeepers,because they control much of what will and will not appear in the next day's paper.

Once the city editor has finished editing a reporter's raw copy, the story moves from the composition system via die computer network to another part of the news division, the copy desk. Here, copy editors check for spelling and other errors of usage. They may also look for "holes" in the story that would confuse readers or leave their questions unanswered. If necessary, copy editors may check facts in the newspaper's library,which maintains a large collection of reference books and online copies of stories that have appeared in the paper.

 

The copy desk chief routes finished stories to other editors who fit local stories, headlines ( written by the editor - not the reporter!) and digital photographs onto pages. Newspapers are increasingly doing this work, called pagination, with personal computers using software available at any office supply store. Before we see what happens to the electronic pages built by the copy desk, it will be helpful to understand how other divisions of the newspapers contribute to the production cycle.

What Are the Editorial Pages All About?

A newspaper publishes its views on current events - both local and national - on its editorial pages. This is where editorials, unsigned commentary that reflects the collective position of the newspaper's editorial board, appear. Editorials are not news, but rather reasoned opinion based on facts. For example, editorials may criticize the performance of public officials such as the mayor, the police chief, or the local school board; conversely, editorials may praise others for their civic contributions.

The editorial pages are under the direction of an editor outside the news division. Newspaper people call this "separation of church and state," meaning there is a line between news and opinion that must not be crossed.

Why Are Ads Important to a Newspaper?

The number of pages beyond a minimum that most newspapers set is is determined not by the news division, but by the amount of advertising sold for that day. (Regardless of advertising, however, newspapers add extra news pages for big local stories such as tornadoes, sports championships or other major events.) The advertising division places ads on pages before they are released to the news division. As a rule, newspapers print slightly more advertising than news. Ads may account for 60 percent or more of weekday pages, but in the larger Sunday edition, it is not unusual for news to take up more space than ads. The ratio of ads to news must be high because newspapers cannot stay in business without advertising revenue. Three types of advertising dominate modern newspapers:

Display ads - with photos and graphics, display ads can cost thousands of dollars depending on their size. These ads, generally placed by department stores, movie theaters and other businesses, may be prepared by an advertising agency or the advertising department itself. They are called run - of-press ads and they produce the most revenue.

Classified ads - classified ads, often called want ads, appear in a miniature typeface. These ads come from individuals trying to buy or sell items, businesses seeking workers. "Classies" are affordable, popular and highly effective in reaching tens of thousands of potential customers.

Inserts - Inserts, the third form of advertising, are favored by large national chain stores. These colorful booklets are trucked to newspapers in huge bundles for distribution with the Sunday edition. Inserts produce less revenue than run-of-press advertising. Newspapers charge for distributing inserts, but otherwise have no control over their content or print quality.

How Is a Newspaper Produced?

The production division does the heavy lifting of newspaper work. Within this division's departments are specialists who run and maintain the presses, typesetters, image scanners and photographic engraving machines. Some workers are assigned to the day shift, others to the night shift.

Most daily newspapers have moved from the labor-intensive technology to some form of offset printing. This process etches the image of a newspaper page onto thin aluminum plates. The process is called offset because the metal plates do not touch the paper going through the press. Instead, the plates transfer their inked image to a rubber roller, which in turn prints the page.

Although newspaper presses are big and noisy, they are remarkably gentle on newsprint, the paper in newspaper. The presses have to be gentle - expensive newsprint streaming off huge rolls must wind through a press without tearing. These complex machines can cost $40 million or more.

In addition to putting ink on paper, the press also assembles the pages of a newspaper in correct sequence. All this occurs so quickly that a modern offset press can spew 70,000 copies an hour onto conveyor belts that speed the copies to the waiting distribution division.

How Are Newspapers Distributed?

Responsibility for getting the newspaper from the press to the reader falls to the distribution division. Large newspapers publish two, three or even four editions, all of which must be ready to leave the newspaper plant at a certain time. The first edition, sometimes called the bulldog edition, goes to the outer limits of the newspaper's circulation area. This may be several countries. Later editions contain progressively fresher news and go to smaller areas. The final edition, which goes to press after midnight, contains the latest news, but covers the smallest geographical area, usually a city.

Any subscriber to a daily newspaper knows that it plops onto the driveway in the wee hours of the morning. Independent contractors called carriers buy copies of the newspaper at a discount and deliver them, using their personal vehicles. When afternoon newspapers were common, those vehicles often were bicycles. The first job for many American youngsters was delivering the afternoon paper in their neighborhood.

The circulation department draws the routes that carriers follow. The circulation department maintains subscribers' billing records, stops and starts deliveries upon request, and uses service runners to deliver missing papers.

In 18 hours of highly coordinated work carried out by numerous divisions, what newspaper people call a "rough draft of history" has moved through computer systems, imaging machines and presses that would amaze Gutenberg, to its final destination - the readers. After 3:30 a.m., few people remain at a newspaper plant. All the other divisions have gone home. The presses have fallen silent. The sudden silence will not last long. In less than four hours, the newspaper, as it must do 365 days a year, will rouse from its short sleep and start all over again.