There are many other departments, operating semi-independently of the news department. Among these are society department, which has a separate staff of reporters to gather its news and sometimes a separate staff of reporters to gather its news and sometimes a separate desktop edit it; the sports department, also made up of reporters versed in sports matters and specialized copy editors; the financial and business department, composed of writers and copy editors who are authorities in their field; the theater department, made up of drama and motion picture critics; the music department, comprising the critics of music and reporters of news in this field; the art news department, which may include an art critic as well as a reporter of news in the art world; and the book news department, covering news of the publishing field as well as book criticism.
These divisions range from one-man departments on smaller newspapers to departments employing a score or more persons, each with a specialized task, on a large newspaper. The division of the newspaper organization depends entirely upon its size ad resources. The news of each department maybe edited by semi-independent copy desks made up of special copy editors, but usually all copy goes to the general copydesks and is edited in the same manner as general news copy. The product of all these departments is news and differs not at all from general news in importance. News is departmentalized solely to facilitate the gathering and to ensure expert treatment. Allotment of space for departmental news is made at the same time as that for general news.
Space must be allotted also for pictures, the amount depending on the newspaper’s policy. If news pictures or photographs of persons are desired, a news picture service, perhaps maintained by the newspaper itself, supplied them, and cuts are made either by the newspaper’s own art department or by outside plants specializing in such work.
Different editions of Newspaper
From the great number of stories that enter the newspaper office in a single night, ten to fifteen or more must be selected for the front page. In some offices his responsibility falls upon one of the assistants to the night editor in charge, and it is to facilitate his work that the summaries of news stories are kept. In other offices the conference system is used, under which the city, national and foreign editors confer with the higher executives and recommend of the first page their chief stories. In this case, summaries are unnecessary.
Many stories are obviously first-page stories, others are doubtful. On the latter, conferences may be held by the editor in charge of the task with his colleagues or superior. If there are more stories of sufficient importance to be displayed on the front page than space permits, they must be weighted against one another. The ten or fifteen or more stories must be weighted to determine their relative importance so that they may be displayed in that order.
The columns of the first page generally are rated, as to display value in a regular one-column head make-up, in the following order: 8, 1 or 6, 3, 7, 5, 4, 2. The right-hand side above the fold of the paper is the best display space because that quarter of the newspaper can be seen if the paper is folded on the newsstand. Because of this, column 6 has excellent display value, although column 1 is generally considered to be the best after column. Nowadays newspapers are placed flat on the newsstand but this does not alter the values materially. Columns 1, 3, 6 and 8 are considered to have more display value than the columns 2, 4, 5 and 7 because of the former require “top heads,“ that is, headlines that extend up to the top of the page and are therefore larger, while the stories must consider balance also, and so place one-column and two-column boxes, cuts, maps and other typographical devices so that the display is attractive. This is especially important when the leading story in column 8 requires a headline that spreads over two, there or more columns. Such a layout frequently alters the display value of the columns and requires special care in balancing the whole page. Balance does not necessarily mean regularity, which may serve only to diminish the display value of the whole page. In addition, to the chief stories selected for the first page, minor short stores may also be used to break up long columns of type or to give a pleasing effect of irregularity.
The front page of a morning newspaper may not change from first edition to last, but the afternoon newspaper, with perhaps six conditions, is likely to change the first page make-up for each condition. This is because the afternoon paper is being published while most of the day’s news events are occurring and continual shifting of stories is necessary to keep pace with events. The early or “bulldog” edition of an afternoon newspaper may contain chiefly the same stories that appeared in the late editions of the morning newspapers in a rewritten form and as new events occur the early stories are shifted from the first page to the inside of the paper and from the forward pages to the back until finally the least important drop out and the more important are retained on less conspicuous pages, unless new developments enhance their value.
The Deadline Approaches
By the time the first page make-up has been determined; the deadline for the first edition is approaching. Dummies of the front page to go to the city, national and foreign editors and to the make-up editor. Guided by it, the copydesks write the proper headlines for the designated stories. Proofs from the composing room have been distributed, read, corrected if necessary and the stories reduced in length if required. The make-up editor and his assistants, informed as to the news and the length of stories by means of proofs, go to the composing room.
The make-up work proceeds in early by fixed schedule. Some newspapers set an early deadline for the financial news so that the back pages are out of the way when the rush of general news make-up begins. The schedule may call for the closing of from four to sixteen page forms every twenty closing of from four to sixteen page forms every twenty minutes, depending on the number of pages in the issue and on the newspaper’s size and facilities. Each page form, when loosed, is removed from the stone to a pressure machine for the making of a matrix, which is an impression of the type of a heavy papier mache sheet. This matrix, or “mat”, is conveyed to the stereo typing room where a metal cast is made. The cast, which prints that page of the newspaper, is then clamped to the rotary press.
The first page form usually is the last to be filled. At times pages are held for a few minutes in order to get into the first edition last-minute story, but delay is avoided when possible. The time of the deadline has been set to meet circulation requirements and a few minutes lost in the composing room may cause tardy deliveries at trains for distribution in the suburbs and elsewhere.
The First Edition: After the first edition deadline has been passed, a temporary lull settles on the newsroom. Then the vibration of the great presses can be felt. In a few minutes the first edition, still wet and smelling of printer’s ink, comes up from the pressroom. It is corrected, cut and added to. The second edition is the next goal. It appears soon afterward, and the first is already history.
If the organization of a large newspaper seems to be so complex as to be bewildering, it can be pointed out that this complexity is more apparent than renal. The functions are simple. The editor of a small paper in a countryseat does the same work on a smaller scale. If he solicits his own advertising, he is functioning as the business department. He is his own reporter, collecting and writing local news; he is the copy editor and headline writer; he is the managing editor and make up editor; the editorial writer and probably the compositor and printer and press man and distributor. If he has correspondents throughout the country and a state or national wire service he is a national editor; and if his paper is large enough to have a fuller world service, he becomes a foreign editor also.
If his paper should grow, requiring the adding of employees, he would begin the division of labour and the functions of gathering, editing and printing news would be distributed among several persons. He should meet new conditions with more complex organizations, just as the large newspaper expands its structure to meet the conditions of keen competition and demands for speed.
The copy desk in a modern newsroom
Before use of computers, the traditional copy desk physically resembled a horseshoe. The chief copy editor, called the “slot editor” or simply the “slot”, sat at the center of the inside curve of a semicircular desk. Copy editors sat along the outside curve of the horseshoe, known as the “rim,” and were thus known as “rim editors.” Although the terms slot editors and rim editor persist, the computerization of editing has changed the physical arrangement of the copy desk. Modern copy desks are arranged in a rectangular shape and generally include separate stations with an electronic editing terminal for each editor.
To help speed the flow of copy, many small and medium-sized newspapers have instituted a system of centralized editing called the universal copy desk. Universal desk copy editors work on copy for all sections of the newspaper.
Conversely, most large metropolitan newspapers have specialized copy desks that process stories for particular categories of news: local, state, national, international, business, sports, opinion, lifestyle or entertainment.
In the last several years, many newsrooms have been experimenting with teams or clusters of journalists who work together in small groups to conceive, report, edit and illustrate stories. Such clusters often comprise a team leader, usually someone from the city desk; a copy editor; a reporter or several reporters; and a photographer or graphic artist. Frequently, the stories each team produces are enterprise packages, in-depth articles about issues of significance in the local community.
Some metros also have separate reporting and editing staffs for “zoned” editions, those pages or sections that target news and advertising for a particular circulation area. In many newspaper markets, zoned editions have proved successful with both readers and advertisers. Subscribers receive the individual section containing news and advertising focusing on their neighborhood, along with the rest of the metropolitan newspaper. Some newspapers publish up to 24 different zoned editions a week; others publish several zoned sections each day. Zoning is becoming more common with other forms of media, too, such as magazines, radio and television.
The fast pace of editing often allows little time for reflection. In today’s newsrooms, where editors are increasingly asked to perform production functions previously handled by a separate staff of production personnel, editors find that their time is at a premium.
An age of rapid technological advances in the publishing industry has introduced computer-generated copy and computer-activated layout and paste up, or pagination. For print publications, therefore, the copy editor’s job has become at once more complex, more exciting and more vital to the quality of the final product.
The technological revolution included pagination, a computerized layout program that continues to have a major impact on a newsroom’s copy editing staff.
Pagination is the vital link to a grander scheme for automation. It calls for the end of the “composing room,” the place where the publication is mechanically produced. Partial pagination, now used at many newspapers, magazines and PR firms, allows editors to create pages on computer terminals with all the text in place, elimination the need for pages to be pasted up, devices that permit the digitization of photographs, a step necessary to achieve total pagination, allow editors to produce an entire page on computer terminals. When total pagination is in place, most work now done in the composing room, a department that accounts for perhaps 25 percent of the total news publication’s payroll will be unnecessary. Clearly, newsroom editors and managers of the future must be ready to meet the challenges of incorporating new technology into newsroom processes. As in many business settings, internal communication occurs more often via computers, particularly through e-mail.
The organizational structure of newsrooms of the future may look quite different.
Today most newsrooms are organized in a hierarchical structure like the one shown in Figure 1-1. That is, the organization looks like a pyramid, with the editor at the apex and the reporters, copy editors and photographers – the workers – forming the base.
Newsrooms of the future may require a more circular structure, in which job functions rather than titles determine the organization and in which jobs are interrelated rather than separated. Copy editors, many believe, will be at the center of this new newsroom because of the breadth of their job functions.
Source: Internet
These divisions range from one-man departments on smaller newspapers to departments employing a score or more persons, each with a specialized task, on a large newspaper. The division of the newspaper organization depends entirely upon its size ad resources. The news of each department maybe edited by semi-independent copy desks made up of special copy editors, but usually all copy goes to the general copydesks and is edited in the same manner as general news copy. The product of all these departments is news and differs not at all from general news in importance. News is departmentalized solely to facilitate the gathering and to ensure expert treatment. Allotment of space for departmental news is made at the same time as that for general news.
Space must be allotted also for pictures, the amount depending on the newspaper’s policy. If news pictures or photographs of persons are desired, a news picture service, perhaps maintained by the newspaper itself, supplied them, and cuts are made either by the newspaper’s own art department or by outside plants specializing in such work.
Different editions of Newspaper
From the great number of stories that enter the newspaper office in a single night, ten to fifteen or more must be selected for the front page. In some offices his responsibility falls upon one of the assistants to the night editor in charge, and it is to facilitate his work that the summaries of news stories are kept. In other offices the conference system is used, under which the city, national and foreign editors confer with the higher executives and recommend of the first page their chief stories. In this case, summaries are unnecessary.
Many stories are obviously first-page stories, others are doubtful. On the latter, conferences may be held by the editor in charge of the task with his colleagues or superior. If there are more stories of sufficient importance to be displayed on the front page than space permits, they must be weighted against one another. The ten or fifteen or more stories must be weighted to determine their relative importance so that they may be displayed in that order.
The columns of the first page generally are rated, as to display value in a regular one-column head make-up, in the following order: 8, 1 or 6, 3, 7, 5, 4, 2. The right-hand side above the fold of the paper is the best display space because that quarter of the newspaper can be seen if the paper is folded on the newsstand. Because of this, column 6 has excellent display value, although column 1 is generally considered to be the best after column. Nowadays newspapers are placed flat on the newsstand but this does not alter the values materially. Columns 1, 3, 6 and 8 are considered to have more display value than the columns 2, 4, 5 and 7 because of the former require “top heads,“ that is, headlines that extend up to the top of the page and are therefore larger, while the stories must consider balance also, and so place one-column and two-column boxes, cuts, maps and other typographical devices so that the display is attractive. This is especially important when the leading story in column 8 requires a headline that spreads over two, there or more columns. Such a layout frequently alters the display value of the columns and requires special care in balancing the whole page. Balance does not necessarily mean regularity, which may serve only to diminish the display value of the whole page. In addition, to the chief stories selected for the first page, minor short stores may also be used to break up long columns of type or to give a pleasing effect of irregularity.
The front page of a morning newspaper may not change from first edition to last, but the afternoon newspaper, with perhaps six conditions, is likely to change the first page make-up for each condition. This is because the afternoon paper is being published while most of the day’s news events are occurring and continual shifting of stories is necessary to keep pace with events. The early or “bulldog” edition of an afternoon newspaper may contain chiefly the same stories that appeared in the late editions of the morning newspapers in a rewritten form and as new events occur the early stories are shifted from the first page to the inside of the paper and from the forward pages to the back until finally the least important drop out and the more important are retained on less conspicuous pages, unless new developments enhance their value.
The Deadline Approaches
By the time the first page make-up has been determined; the deadline for the first edition is approaching. Dummies of the front page to go to the city, national and foreign editors and to the make-up editor. Guided by it, the copydesks write the proper headlines for the designated stories. Proofs from the composing room have been distributed, read, corrected if necessary and the stories reduced in length if required. The make-up editor and his assistants, informed as to the news and the length of stories by means of proofs, go to the composing room.
The make-up work proceeds in early by fixed schedule. Some newspapers set an early deadline for the financial news so that the back pages are out of the way when the rush of general news make-up begins. The schedule may call for the closing of from four to sixteen page forms every twenty closing of from four to sixteen page forms every twenty minutes, depending on the number of pages in the issue and on the newspaper’s size and facilities. Each page form, when loosed, is removed from the stone to a pressure machine for the making of a matrix, which is an impression of the type of a heavy papier mache sheet. This matrix, or “mat”, is conveyed to the stereo typing room where a metal cast is made. The cast, which prints that page of the newspaper, is then clamped to the rotary press.
The first page form usually is the last to be filled. At times pages are held for a few minutes in order to get into the first edition last-minute story, but delay is avoided when possible. The time of the deadline has been set to meet circulation requirements and a few minutes lost in the composing room may cause tardy deliveries at trains for distribution in the suburbs and elsewhere.
The First Edition: After the first edition deadline has been passed, a temporary lull settles on the newsroom. Then the vibration of the great presses can be felt. In a few minutes the first edition, still wet and smelling of printer’s ink, comes up from the pressroom. It is corrected, cut and added to. The second edition is the next goal. It appears soon afterward, and the first is already history.
If the organization of a large newspaper seems to be so complex as to be bewildering, it can be pointed out that this complexity is more apparent than renal. The functions are simple. The editor of a small paper in a countryseat does the same work on a smaller scale. If he solicits his own advertising, he is functioning as the business department. He is his own reporter, collecting and writing local news; he is the copy editor and headline writer; he is the managing editor and make up editor; the editorial writer and probably the compositor and printer and press man and distributor. If he has correspondents throughout the country and a state or national wire service he is a national editor; and if his paper is large enough to have a fuller world service, he becomes a foreign editor also.
If his paper should grow, requiring the adding of employees, he would begin the division of labour and the functions of gathering, editing and printing news would be distributed among several persons. He should meet new conditions with more complex organizations, just as the large newspaper expands its structure to meet the conditions of keen competition and demands for speed.
The copy desk in a modern newsroom
Before use of computers, the traditional copy desk physically resembled a horseshoe. The chief copy editor, called the “slot editor” or simply the “slot”, sat at the center of the inside curve of a semicircular desk. Copy editors sat along the outside curve of the horseshoe, known as the “rim,” and were thus known as “rim editors.” Although the terms slot editors and rim editor persist, the computerization of editing has changed the physical arrangement of the copy desk. Modern copy desks are arranged in a rectangular shape and generally include separate stations with an electronic editing terminal for each editor.
To help speed the flow of copy, many small and medium-sized newspapers have instituted a system of centralized editing called the universal copy desk. Universal desk copy editors work on copy for all sections of the newspaper.
Conversely, most large metropolitan newspapers have specialized copy desks that process stories for particular categories of news: local, state, national, international, business, sports, opinion, lifestyle or entertainment.
In the last several years, many newsrooms have been experimenting with teams or clusters of journalists who work together in small groups to conceive, report, edit and illustrate stories. Such clusters often comprise a team leader, usually someone from the city desk; a copy editor; a reporter or several reporters; and a photographer or graphic artist. Frequently, the stories each team produces are enterprise packages, in-depth articles about issues of significance in the local community.
Some metros also have separate reporting and editing staffs for “zoned” editions, those pages or sections that target news and advertising for a particular circulation area. In many newspaper markets, zoned editions have proved successful with both readers and advertisers. Subscribers receive the individual section containing news and advertising focusing on their neighborhood, along with the rest of the metropolitan newspaper. Some newspapers publish up to 24 different zoned editions a week; others publish several zoned sections each day. Zoning is becoming more common with other forms of media, too, such as magazines, radio and television.
The fast pace of editing often allows little time for reflection. In today’s newsrooms, where editors are increasingly asked to perform production functions previously handled by a separate staff of production personnel, editors find that their time is at a premium.
An age of rapid technological advances in the publishing industry has introduced computer-generated copy and computer-activated layout and paste up, or pagination. For print publications, therefore, the copy editor’s job has become at once more complex, more exciting and more vital to the quality of the final product.
The technological revolution included pagination, a computerized layout program that continues to have a major impact on a newsroom’s copy editing staff.
Pagination is the vital link to a grander scheme for automation. It calls for the end of the “composing room,” the place where the publication is mechanically produced. Partial pagination, now used at many newspapers, magazines and PR firms, allows editors to create pages on computer terminals with all the text in place, elimination the need for pages to be pasted up, devices that permit the digitization of photographs, a step necessary to achieve total pagination, allow editors to produce an entire page on computer terminals. When total pagination is in place, most work now done in the composing room, a department that accounts for perhaps 25 percent of the total news publication’s payroll will be unnecessary. Clearly, newsroom editors and managers of the future must be ready to meet the challenges of incorporating new technology into newsroom processes. As in many business settings, internal communication occurs more often via computers, particularly through e-mail.
The organizational structure of newsrooms of the future may look quite different.
Today most newsrooms are organized in a hierarchical structure like the one shown in Figure 1-1. That is, the organization looks like a pyramid, with the editor at the apex and the reporters, copy editors and photographers – the workers – forming the base.
Newsrooms of the future may require a more circular structure, in which job functions rather than titles determine the organization and in which jobs are interrelated rather than separated. Copy editors, many believe, will be at the center of this new newsroom because of the breadth of their job functions.
Source: Internet
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