Newspaper a Daily Miracle

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Miracle A Daily

A student

guide to journalismand the

newspaperbusiness

The Newspaper

Miracle

A Daily



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Glossary BoxA sidebar or a design featurecontained within four

perpendicular rules

BroadsheetA full-sized newspaper page,usually around 21-23 incheshigh x 12 – 14 inches wide.

BudgetThe articles proposed to fill thatday’s news hole

CirculationThe number of newspapers soldor distributed; the newspaper

department responsible forselling and deliveringnewspapers

Classified adsAn (inexpensive) ad offering orseeking merchandise orservices such as automobiles,housing, or jobs

CopyWords in a newspaper

Copy desk

The editors who check foraccuracy, style, grammar, etc.,and write headlines and cutlines

DatelineWhere (and sometimes when) apicture or story originated

Display adsAds including both copy andgraphics, designed to attractreaders’ attention. Unlikeclassified ads, they are placedthroughout the newspaper

EditorialAn essay that gives thenewspaper’s official position onan issue, which regularlyappears on an "editorial page"that is separate from the newspages.

FeatureAn article or item that is notnews: comics, advice columns,art, theater reviews, humaninterest stories, etc.

GraphicsCharts, graphs, or otherillustrations that enhance thelook or aid in understanding anewspaper story or article.

Half-tonePictures made up of dots ofdifferent sizes

LayoutTo design and arrange theelements of a page

Letters to the EditorUsually appearing on the editorialpage, the letters provide readerswith the means to respond towhat they read in the newspaper.

News holeThe space for which news andfeatures are budgeted after adsare inserted, or laid out

Offset pressA printing press in which a platemakes impressions on arubberized blanket, whichtransfers the image to newsprint

Opinion pagesThat section of a newspaper that

presents columns by writers whocan be syndicated, regularcontributors, one-timecontributors, or newspaper staffmembers; also called the "op-

ed" pages (for "opposite theeditorial" page)

PaginateTo design or lay out pages on acomputer

Political cartoonA cartoon that uses satire orcaricature to comment oncurrent events or issues (alsoknown as an editorial cartoon)

Rim editorOne of the copy editors whodoes the first reading of finalcopy

RuleA straight line in newspaperdesign, usually described bywidth (e.g., a one-point rule)

Slot editorThe senior copy editor who doesthe final reading or review ofcopy

SyndicateAs a noun, an agency or servicethat provides articles,

photographs or featuressimultaneously to multiplepublications; as a verb, to do so.

TabloidA newspaper half the size of abroadsheet

ThumbnailSmaller version of mugshot.

Web pressAn offset press that printssimultaneously on both sides ofa roll of newsprint

Wire Service

An agency that collects andelectronically syndicates(distributes) news andphotographs to newspapers fora fee.

FlagThe newspaper’s name(also called anameplate) on pageone.

EarThe space in the upperright or left corner of thefront page.

MugshotSmall photograph of aperson’s face, often a filephoto.

Headline(Also hed) A large-typesummary at the top of astory.

CutlineThe identification and/orexplanation of aphotograph.

RuleStraight line on a page.

BylineThe name of the personwho wrote the article.

IndexA list of sections andfeatures and their pagenumbers.

FolioThe line with anewspaper’s name, dateof publication, and pagenumber.

Subhed(Also subhead, drophead or deck) Smallertype headline undermain hed.

JumplineDirection to continue thestory on another page(e.g., "See BUSH, PageB8").

C L O U D

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H I G H 7 0 ,

L O W 5 7

– A 2 4

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2005

FINAL

www.washingtontimes.comSUBSCRIBERSERVICE:(202)636-3333

PRICESMAYVARYOUTSIDEMETROPOLITANWASHINGTONAREA 25 cents

INSIDE Friday,October14, 2005Volume24,Number287,7 Sections,110pages

7 702803 87040

AutoWeek/ G1-8Beltway/ A5Business/ C9-14Classified/ E1-5Comics/ E6Commentary/ A20Culture/ A2Daybook/ A10Editorials/ A22HomeGuide/ F1-44

Ring/A6Metro/B1-6Movies/ D6-7Nation/ A3-10Politics/ A7Pruden/ A4Sports/ C1-8Stocks/ 10-11Television/D5World/A17-19

ByStephenDinanTHEWASHINGTON TIMES

SenateMajorityLeader BillFristsaid yesterdaythat theSenatewilltackleborder secu-rityand interiorimmigrationenforcement beforeturning tothebroaderquestion ofimmi-grationreformsand a guest-workerprogram.

“Itisa separateissue,butit’sonethatpeopleunderstand,”theTennessee Republicansaid of bordersecurity.“It’sanimme-

diate issue,it needs tobe ad-dressedmore aggressively, weneedto dothat.”

SpeakingwithThe Washing-tonTimesby telephoneafterahelicoptertouryesterdayof300milesoftheU.S.-MexicoborderinTexas,Mr.Fristsaid hedoesnotknowwhether animmigra-tionbillcanpassthisyearbe-causeof aheavy workload,but

theSenatewillpassabill beforeadjourningnextyear.

Hesaidthenextimmigrationbillshould addressborderse-curityandcould coverinteriorenforcementas well.

Asmajority leader,he con-trols thefloorschedule oftheSenate, andhis decisionwillpleasemanyconservatives,whoarecallingforenforcementfirst.

Butitputshimat odds withPresidentBush and immigra-tionrightsadvocates,whohavesaid they want action on abroaderguest-workerprogramthisyear.

Hispositionon tacklingen-forcementfirstis similartofor-mer House Majority LeaderTomDeLay,whosays thegov-ernmentmustproveto voters

thatitcan enforceimmigrationlawsbeforeCongressturnstoaguest-workerplan.

“Ithinkwhat I’msayingisprobablyparallel to that,”Mr.Fristsaid.“The understandingof immigrationissueswill beacceleratedby theconditionof understandingwhat borderse-curity is about, whatinternal

Frist to take on border bill firstImmigration reform will come later

ByTarronLivelyTHEWASHINGTON TIMES

D.C. officialsthis weekendwill expand their automatedtraffic-enforcement program,eventhough a record-lowper-centageofmotoristsarespeed-ingthroughthe District.

Critics of the program at-tackedtheexpansionasthe Dis-trict’slatestefforttoreapmorerevenuefrom trafficcameras,which have generated about$117millioninfines since theprogrambeganin 1999.

Two newphoto-radarcam-eraswillbeginissuingticketsto-morrow.Thecameraswillsnappicturesofspeeders inthe 600block of New York AvenueNortheastandinthe3400blockofBenningRoad Northeast.

Inaddition,a newred-lightcamera will target traffic atFloridaand NewYorkavenuesinNortheasttomorrow.

Duringthe 30-daywarningperiod,more than25,000vehi-cleswerecaughtspeedingbythetworadarcameras.Thered-lightcamera caught546viola-tors.

AccordingtothemostrecentstatisticsfromtheMetropolitanPoliceDepartment,3percentof

Districtexpandscameraprogram

ByBill GertzTHEWASHINGTON TIMES

TheriseofmilitantstopowerpositionsinIran israisingnewworriesaboutIranian militaryforces’deployingnewweaponsthatthreatenoil suppliesorfu-ture long-range nuclear orchemicalmissilestrikes.

Militaryspecialists saytheIslamistregimein Tehranhas

notinvestedheavilyin thepastdecadein newtanks, armoredvehiclesorwarplanes,but in-steadfocuseddefensespendingon“asymmetric”warfarecapa-bilities.

These includeIran’s covertnuclearprogramandnew Sha-hab-3andolderScudmissilesthat could deliver nuclear,chemical and biologicalweapons hundreds of milesaway.

Iran’smilitarypowerisunderscrutinyafternewIranianPres-ident MahmoudAhmadinejadrecentlyplacedthe country’snucleararms programunderthecontrolofthe IslamicRevo-lutionaryGuardsCorps,whicharechargedwithprotectingtheregime.

Iranianforcesalsohavepur-chasedand builtlarge coastalforces equipped with high-speed,anti-shipcruisemissilesthatcouldbe usedto disruptstrategicoilsuppliesthroughout

Iranianmilitantsin powerstir fears

ByMayaAlleruzzoTHEWASHINGTON TIMES

BAQOUBA, Iraq — JointIraqi andU.S.security forcesfoiledanattemptbyterroriststoambusha truckdeliveringbal-lotstothenearbycityof Muq-tadiyayesterday,oneina seriesofattacks aheadof tomorrow’svote ona permanentconstitu-tion.

Adecoy convoy—disguisedtolook likeitwas carryingbal-

lotsfrom the IraqiElectoralCommissionandheavilyarmedwithIraqiforces —drew firefromterroristshidinginapalmgrove outside of Baqouba atmidday.

Unknowntotheenemy,threeordinarypickup truckscarry-ingtherealballotsalreadyweredeliveringthepreciouscargotothecityofMuqtadiya,anhour’s

drive away.ThirtyIraqisoldiers,accom-

paniedby areporter-photogra-pherforTheWashingtonTimes,wereassignedto thedummyconvoy.Itwas anall-Iraqioper-ation. No U.S. soldiers werepresent.

TheIraqiswerereadyforafight.

“Bythe nameof Allah,the

mostmerciful,”saidIraqiarmyLt.Hayder,who,likeotherIraqisoldiers,goesonlybyonenametoprotecthisfamilyfrombeingtargetedby terrorists.

“Thismission is dangerous.Any civilian car moving be-tweenourcarsshouldbeseenasathreat,”Lt.Haydersaidbeforethemissiongotunder way.

Theattackbegan withthe

bone-jarring explosion of aroadsidebomb followedby abarrage of rocket-propelledgrenadesandrifle fire.

Withinseconds,Iraqisoldiersrespondedwitha wallofauto-matic-weaponsfire.Theterror-istsran.

Iraqi ploy foils terrorist attack

Decoy draws fire as ballots reach their destination

ByCharlesHurtTHEWASHINGTON TIMES

The nomination of Harriet Miers to theSupremeCourthas splinteredPresidentBush’sbaseandtriggeredagrowingdemandfromhisownsupporterstowithdrawher nomination.

“Whatastupid,stupid mistake,”said MarkW.Smith,a memberof theconservativeFederalistSocietywhohasactivelysupportedMr.Bushbutwants tosee thenominationwithdrawn.“Youcannotfixthis for25years.”

Conservatives have stuck with Mr. Bushthroughthebloodiest andgloomiestdays ofthewarin Iraq,heldfirm asadministrationofficialsareinvestigatedfor revealinga CIAoperative’sidentityandgivenhima passonthegallopingfed-eralspending.Butblowingthe historicopportu-

Conservatives callto withdraw Miers

ByJenHaberkornTHEWASHINGTON TIMES

Forthewineindustry,locationisthetoastofthetown.

The European Union and two wine tradegroupshavecreatedanewgroupto helpeducateAmericanconsumersaboutwhere theirbubblyandotherwines comefrom.

TheCenterforWineOrigins,whichopened intheDistrictlastmonth, hasstarteda three-yearcampaigntargetingconsumers,retailersandlaw-makersstressingtheimportanceterrainand cli-matehavein givingwinegrapesa specifictaste.

“Wewantto educateAmericanconsumersonthebroaderissueof theimportanceof location,”saidMirandaDuncan,a spokeswomanfor thecenter.

Grape expectationsdrive wine group

DOMINO’SLIFE —Model-turned-bountyhunter DominoHarvey,thesubjectofafilmopeningtoday,isfondly recalledbyher cousin,WashingtonwriterJoshuaSinai.D1

PhotographsbyMaya Alleruzzo/The Washington TimesFirefight: Lt.Hayder(left) andCapt.Furat,both ofthe Iraqiarmy,firedmachineguns atassailantswhoattackedtheirconvoyin Baqouba,Iraq, yesterday.

Chopper cover: Iraqiarmysoldiersescorteda decoyconvoyoftruckscontainingnoelectionballotsfromBaqouba.The realconvoyarrivedsafelyin Muqtadiya.

Taking aim: Capt.Furatfired atterroristshidingin apalmgrovewhotried toambushthe decoyconvoy.ThirtyIraqisoldiersparticipatedinthe operation.

Casualties: OneIraqisoldier andtwoIraqi electionworkerswerewoundedinthe attackonthe decoyconvoy,but theywereexpectedto recover.

see IRAN, page A16

see FRIST, page A14United PressInternational

A firsthand look: SenateMajorityLeaderBillFrist tookahelicoptertour ofthe Texas-Mexicoborderyesterday.

seeWINE, page A14

● Texas sheriff criticizes lax federalbordersecurity.A11

seeCAMERAS, page A14

see IRAQ, page A16

●President BushpraisesIraqieffortstodraft constitution. A4

Havingassaultedthepublicw ith“ManonFire,”w hichunleashedDenz elWashing-tonasabody-guardatw arw iththeMexi-canunderw orld,directorTonyScottnow perpe-trates,w ith

“Domino,”adistaffvariationthatmightasw ellbecalled“BabyDollAblaz e.”

ConfinedmostlytoadepravedLosAngeles-LasVegascorridor,thishellbentcriminalspectaclepurportstomemorializ ethemis-spentlifeofaprodigal,DominoHarvey.Thesubjectdiedofadrugoverdoseafew monthsago

atage35.Shew asaw aitingtrialonafederalnar-coticsrap.

Portrayedbyaw illowy,surlyandprettymuchen-gulfed-and-devouredKeiraKnightley,Dominow asthedaughterofactorLaurenceHar-

vey,w hodiedin1973w henhew as45andDominowas4—or8,accordingtooneoftheminorex-

Show FRIDAY,OCTOBER14, 2005 SECTION D

MoviesGaryArnold

MusicofWonder /D2Movie listings/D6

TV listings/D5

Creating‘Wallace & Gromit’/D4

TuningIn/D2

Moore the real‘Winner ’/D4

Bad choices

DominoHarveywasmycousin.Ididnotknow Domino—mythologizedasadangerousandseductivethrill-seekingbountyhunterinthenew film“Domino”(review edbelow )—w henshew asgrow ingupinEngland.Ifirstcom-muni-

catedw ithherin1997,w henshew as28yearsold.Atthetime,shelivedinLosAn-geles,andIlived(andstilldo)intheWashingtonarea.

Herfather,thefamousscreenandstagestarLaurence(Larry)Harvey,w asmyfather’syoungerbrother(ouroriginalfamilynamewas

Reminiscence

JoshuaSinai

KeiraKnightleyportray s Dom inoHarv ey in“Dom ino.”

see DOMINO, pageD 3

SplashNewsLaurenc eHarv ey andPauleneStonearepic turedwiththeirdaughterDom inoHarv ey . seeCOUSIN, pageD 3

seeMIERS, page A16

NationDEATHSPROBED— TheLouisianaattorneygeneral’sofficeinvestigatesdeathsrelatedtoHurricaneKatrina atmore than20medical facilities,includingchargesofeuthanasiaataNewOrleanshospital.A3

WorldDOZENSKILLED— StreetbattlesbetweenIslamicmilitantsandsecurityforces killdozensofpeoplein thesouthernRussiancityof Nalchik.A17

Foes see moveto raise cash

‘Stupid mistake’ slammed Terrain, climate stressed

Key Newspaper Terms

Your Daily Newspaper



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A D A I L Y Mi r a c l e

AN "A +"EVERY DAY For sure, many of you are in-

terested in the world around you.You want to know how well thecountry is being run and howyour local government officialsare doing.

To stay current, you could readthe Congressional Record – thecomplete and official proceed-ings of the U.S. Congress. Youwould also want to study the an-

nual budget presented to Con-gress by the Executive Branch.You would also want to talk to alot of people so you could under-stand what people are thinking.Do you think you could stayknowledgeable in this way andstill have enough time for schoolwork, activities, family andfriends?

One person can’t keep up allby himself. That’s where news-papers come in. They provide aservice by employing journal-ists who conduct research and

then report, write and edit sothat it is clear, concise, accurateand interesting.

When you see how much co-ordinated effort is required topublish a daily newspaper, we

think you will appreciate whatmen and women at newspapersgo through. If they were re-porting every day to theirteachers, we think they wouldearn an A+.

After you learn from readingA Daily Miracle, perhaps youwill find some aspect of newspa-per and "new media" work inter-esting as a career. Take a mo-ment to give this some thought.It’s exciting to be part of today’sworld of communications.

THE NEED TOCOMMUNICATE

People have always felt theneed to communicate and torecord the events of their lives, whether by cave drawings, clay tablets, hieroglyphics – or today’s newspapers.

On the American continent,Benjamin Harris published thefirst newspaper in 1690. Publick

Occurrences was four pageslong, with two columns on eachpage. But it didn’t last long. Thecolonial government shut itdown after the first issue.

Fourteen years later, in 1704,

Boston postmaster John Camp-bell published the BostonNews-Letter on a single pageprinted front and back. Camp-bell’s weekly publication livedlonger than Publick Occur-rences – until 1776. By the endof the Revolutionary War, thecolonies had 43 newspapers inprint.

Look at a copy of your localnewspaper. It’s clear to see thatnewspapers have come a longway in the last 250 to 300 years.Newspapers were the dominant

source of news until sometimeafter the emergence of televi-sion in the middle of the 20thcentury.

Now the Internet – the "newmedia" – provides a huge andvaried amount of news content24 hours a day. The newspaperindustry at first puzzled overwhat to do about news being de-livered over the Internet, andthen embraced it. Newspapersare now expanding into the dig-ital world and becoming "infor-mation companies."

Many newspapers use the In-ternet and streaming video todistribute their news contentwhile maintaining the newspa-per as the core product.

WHAT IS NEWS?To answer, "What is news?" you have to know about theneeds and interests of youraudience. Did your youngersister lose a tooth today? Mostnewspaper readers couldn’t careless. Imagine opening up yourdaily newspaper and reading:

Seven-year-old girl loses an-other tooth

"Susie Smith lost her right front cuspid today," according to

Charlie Smith, her 14-year-oldbrother. "It was really bloody,"said Charlie.

Susie explained that she will put the tooth under her pillowtonight. "I hope the tooth fairybrings me a dollar," she said."This is the fourth one I’ve lost."

This news may be of interestto you, your parents, a few of your sister’s friends, and herdentist – but no one else.

Consider some other exam-ples:

The story about a NationalGuard unit being called to ac-tive duty will be a top story inthe community affected, butwould not be covered in thesame manner, if at all, in a na-

tional newspaper.If the production assistant to

filmmaker George Lucas isthrown from her horse and breaksher leg, it is not news. But if it hap-pens to George Lucas, it is defi-nitely Hollywood news and mayshow up as a short item in generalinterest newspapers nationwide.

John Bogart, an editor of theNew York Sun in the late 19th cen-tury, has said, famously: "When adog bites a man, that is not newsbecause it happens so often. Butif a man bites a dog, it’s news."

Most media try to present amix of "hard" news and "soft"news. "Hard news events," writeBruce Itule and Douglas Ander-son in News Writing and Report-ing, "such as killings, city councilmeetings and speeches by lead-ing government officials, aretimely and are reported almostautomatically by the media. Softnews events, such as a lunch tohonor a retiring school custodianor a car wash by fourth-gradersto raise money for a classmatewith cancer, are not usually con-sidered immediately importantor timely to a wide audience.These events still contain ele-ments of news, however, and themedia often report them."

The value of newspapers

Chronology: A brief history of mass communications

75,000 BC:Cave drawingsin South Africa

3,500 BC:Pictographs inSumeria

3,000 BC:Cuneiformwritingdevelops inSumeria;hieroglyphics inEgypt

2,000 BC:Introduction ofpapyrus

59 BC: InRome, JuliusCaesar ordersActa Diurna tobe posted daily

75,000BC 2,000BC 1200 1400

740 AD: Firstprintednewspaper, inChina

1234: Koreansuse moveabletype to printbooks

1276: Firstnewspaperpublished in(Fabriano) Italy

1450:Gutenbergintroducesprinting presswith moveabletype

1474: InBruges,Belgium,William Caxtonprints andpublishes thefirst Englishlanguage book

What if you had to deliver a major report every day in your class. Your presentation has to be in

writing, accurate, well organized and visually appealing, for your teacher and classmates.

What a huge job!



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1476: Caxtonprints andpublishes thefirst book inEngland

1477: MonteSancto di Dio,the first bookwith intaglioillustration, ispublished inFlorence, Italy

1536: The firstnewspaper inEurope, theGazetta, ispublished inVenice, Italy

1539: JuanPablusintroducesprinting toMexico and theNew World

1605:Antwerp’sNieuweTijdingen, thefirst weeklynewspaper inEurope, isintroduced

1640: Puritansin Cambridge,Massachusetts,print andpublish the firstbook in thecolonies

1690:Benjamin HarrispublishesPublickOccurrences,the firstnewspaper onthe Americancontinent, whichwas shut downafter the first

issue

1702: TheDaily Courant,the first dailynewspaper inthe Englishlanguage, ispublished inEngland

1704: BostonpostmasterJohn Campbellpublishes TheBoston News-Letter

1719: WilliamBrookerlaunches theBoston Gazetteto compete withThe BostonNews-Letter

1500 1600 1700

FREEDOM OFTHE PRESS

How important are newspapers

and other media to this country?Look at the U.S. Constitution.There is only one businessmentioned. That is the "press."

The First Amendment reads:"Congress shall make no law re-specting an establishment of re-ligion, or prohibiting the free ex-ercise thereof; or abridging thefreedom of speech, or of thepress, or the right of the peoplepeaceably to assemble, and topetition the government for a re-

dress of grievances."The Founding Fathers knewthat there could be no freedom if the government was allowed tocontrol information.

Freedom of the press does notmean that journalists can breaklaws that apply to everybodyelse. For example, a journalistcan’t go onto someone’s privateproperty to conduct an interviewwithout permission, and a jour-nalist who reports falsely andharms someone’s reputation maybe sued for libel.

PACK JOURNALISM Americans are losing

confidence in their traditionalsources of news—whether printor broadcast. Those having strong confidence in newspapershave declined from 37% to 28%

since 2000, according to anannual Gallup survey on publicconfidence in major institutions.The confidence level for television news was also at 28%.

This diminishing confidencein the media is partly due to whatis referred to as "pack" journal-ism. You all know that it is easyto follow the crowd – or "pack."Everybody wants to be liked andhave friends. It’s no differentamong journalists. It’s morecomfortable to play follow-the-leader. It also means less work.

However, citizens are poorlyserved when a dominant newsoperation first defines the mean-

ing of an event and other re-porters just fall in line.Good editors and reporters

work hard. They look beyond thesurface. Is there a story behindthe apparent story? Is someonetrying to manipulate informa-tion in their self-interest? Who’slying? Who’s telling the truth?What’s the evidence?

A bold, enterprising reportercan attract slings and arrows.But if a newspaper is not willingto pursue the facts wherever theylead, think independently and

report what is learned, then whyeven be here?

Newspapers, reporters andeditors are serious about thepublic responsibility involved inreporting and interpreting thenews. For this reason, in the na-tion and worldwide, newspapersprovide students and all othercitizens who wish to be well-in-formed with a leading, respected

voice to the media consensus thatis often formed by pack

journalism.

BIAS IN THE MEDIA A journalist is a person justlike you, with his or her ownunique experiences andbackground. How can journalistsreport the news objectively?

Editors often assign reportersto cover a story, and sometimessay what angle they want cov-ered. How can editors keep theirpersonal viewpoints from slant-ing news coverage?

If a newspaper has a point of view, does this mean that its newscoverage is biased? What kindsof points of views could a news-paper have? Newspaper are con-stantly making choices aboutwhat stories to cover, and whereto place them in the paper?

We all have biases based onour life’s circumstances. Just asthere is no such thing as a com-pletely "unbiased" person, an "un-biased" newspaper or newsbroadcast may be a noble ideal,but in reality, it is a fiction.

This being said, it is criticallyimportant that reporters do theirvery best to keep their biasesout of their news coverage. Oth-erwise the reporter and newsorganization will damage them-selves and the people they arecovering.

One important way to reportfairly is to include opposingpoints of view. Good reporters

and editors do so as a routinematter of journalistic principle.

Approximately one-fourth of the editors of more than 150daily newspapers in the U.S.listed fairness and objectivityas the most pressing ethical is-sues facing journalists today.

AN EXAMPLE OFNEWS JUDGMENT

The decision about whatphotographs to take and whichones to publish doesn’t happenby accident. It requires news judgments.

Someone assigns a photogra-pher. The photographer decideswhen to take pictures and whatto include – whether to includeprotesters waving signs, for in-stance, or to zoom in on thespeaker’s face. Here, ethicalquestions can arise.

If the photographer takes atight shot of the speaker’s faceto capture the speaker’s ex-pression, this may be good news

judgment. But if demonstratorsare not included because thephotographer or editor wants to

help the candidate, this is bad journalism intended to manipu-late the reader.

What if the photographer in-cludes the protesters becausehe agrees with them, even if there are only 20 noisy, placard-waving demonstrators at a po-litical speech as compared to3,000 people there who supporta candidate?

Let’s even say that the demon-strators were strongly encour-aged to appear at the politicalrally by their employers, andthat they were paid for their timeoff from work. Then, is that themost important story?

There are always choices. De-cisions made moment-to-mo-ment are often dictated by anewspaper’s resources and thepressure of deadlines.

BUSINESSCONGLOMERATES AND THE NEWS

Former TV anchorman DanRather said at a speech atFordham University that thebusiness conglomerates that own the broadcast networks aredamaging to the practice of good journalism.

He decried a "new journalismorder" where news executivesand editors can lose their jobs if they fail to deliver profits toshareholders and get on thewrong side of powerful politicalinterests. He said this leads to

fear in the newsroom.This "New Journalism Order"

is not confined to broadcast cor-porations. "The media are spi-raling toward a concentration of ownership in fewer and fewerlarge corporations," writesMelvin Mencher in News Re-porting and Writing.

Responsibility and Integrity

Great traditions are established with difficulty and only maintained with constant vigilance. Journalism in America is no different. "Freedom of the Press" is a

First Amendment right of American citizens. The responsibility of thepress as an institution must not be taken for granted.




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1721: BenFranklin takesover publishingthe NewEnglandCourant whenhis brotherJames isarrested

1729: BenFranklin’sPennsylvaniaGazette is themost prominentnewspaper inthe colonies

1732 – 1758:Ben Franklinpublishes PoorRichard’sAlmanack

1733: JohnPeter Zenger,publisher of theNew YorkWeekly Journal,is found notguilty of“seditious libel”

1752: The firstnewspaper inCanada, TheHalifax Gazette,is launched

1754: BenFranklin printsthe first editorialcartoon: “Join,or die”

1768-69:Samuel Adamsand the Sons ofLiberty publishtheir “Journal ofOccurrences” innewspapers

1776: Boston’sMassachusettsSpy publishesan eyewitnessaccount of theBattle ofLexington andthe “shot heardround the world”

1783: ThePennsylvaniaEvening Postbecomes thefirst dailynewspaper inAmerica

1788: TheLondon Timesis launched

1750

HOW MEDIA DIFFER

Some say the evolution of television and the Internet spells the end of printed news. Whatdo you think?

Each distribution channel fornews has its strengths and weak-nesses. As a print medium,newspapers focus on the read-ability of the news and informa-tion while television and cableare providing their "product"through an audio-visualmedium. The cost of a print jour-nalist covering a story is lessthan that of TV, which needs ad-ditional personnel such as acameraman.

Radio and television news-casters often rely on newspa-pers and the wire services (As-sociated Press, UPI, Reuters,Agence France Presse) fortheir information. Notice howfrequently broadcasters referto articles in that day’s news-paper.

Television has a one-size-fits-all approach to the news, anddelivers it at a modest intellec-

tual level, often, with strong vi-sual impact.Information over the Internet

is delivered more quickly thanby newspapers. Internet viewerscan choose what news they wantand how deeply they want to gointo a subject. They can interactonline with people who have thesame interests.

However, credibility on theInternet can be an issue. An ar-ticle in a newspaper is edited bytwo or three people, who checkaccuracy, grammar, consis-

tency in style, and readability."Bloggers" range from rep-utable writers with reasonedand documented arguments topeople writing with total disre-gard for facts.

"The Roman Empire that wasmass media is breaking up," saysOrville Schell, dean of the Uni-versity of California at Berkeley's

journalism school, "and we are

entering an almost-feudal periodwhere there will be many morecenters of power and influence."(Business Week, January 17,

2005)

Responsibility and Integrity

What isnewsworthy?

Melvin Mencher of

Columbia University lists and

describes eight factors that

determine what is

newsworthy in the tenth

edition of his book, News

Reporting and Writing

(McGraw Hill 2005).1. Timeliness – events that

are immediate

2. Impact – events that are

likely to affect many people

3. Prominence – events

involving well-known people

or institutions

4. Proximity – events

geographically or

emotionally close to people

5. Conflict – strife,

antagonism, warfare,

challenges

6. The Unusual – things

that are truly different,

bizarre, strange, wondrous

7. Currency – an idea

whose time has come

8. Necessity – the

journalist has discovered

something he or she feels is

necessary to disclose

"These eight news values

do not exist in a vacuum,"

Mencher writes. "Their

application depends on

those who are deciding what

is news, where the event and

the news medium is located,

the tradition of the

newspaper or station, its

audience and a host of other

factors."

Seven-year-old Dean supporter Samuel Wood of Fort Dodge, Iowa yawns as Democratic presidentialhopeful Howard Dean speaks at a pancake breakfast in Fort Dodge to rally support leading up to theIowa caucuses Thursday, January 15, 2004.

The photographer decides when to take pictures and what to include – whether toinclude a young supporter yawning, for instance, or tozoom in on the speaker’s face.Here, ethical questions canarise for the photographer and

editors.



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Who works at a newspaper?

There are many important jobs in the business and editorial operations of a newspapercompany. A career in the newspaper business is very interesting, whether in editorial,

production, circulation, advertising sales, marketing, computer services, or accounting.In editorial operations, re-

porters and editors become criti-cal thinkers and well-informed,good listeners who can organizetheir thoughts and communicateinformation quickly and clearly inwriting. Photographers, illustra-tors and other graphic artists getto use their imaginations and havethe satisfaction of seeing theirwork enjoyed by hundreds of thou-sands of people each day.

There are so many differentkinds of jobs on the business sideof a newspaper. One thing is forsure. Life at a daily newspaper islively, and no two days are ever thesame.

STAFFMost people assume that if you

work for a newspaper you are aneditor, reporter or photographer. Yet these aren’t the only jobs.

Reporters are the heart of a

newspaper. Editors plan the cov-erage, provide assignments, su-pervise, and have ultimate re-sponsibility for the work of thereporters.

Some small weeklies mighthave three people collectively fill-ing the roles of editor, reporter,photographer, layout artist,printer, ad salesman, and ac-countant. On the other hand, somelarge dailies have so many editorsthat even some newsroom re-porters aren’t sure what they alldo.

There are other jobs at a news-paper. For example, windows anddoors need cleaning and polishing.The parking lots require snow re-moval in the winter and the build-ings need trash removal every day.

There are computers requiringmaintenance and a Web site thatmust be updated. The cafeterianeeds employees to prepare thefood, run the cash registers, andreplenish buffet tables.

There are also security guards,

secretaries, and shuttle driversfor vans that transport employees.There are pressmen (male and fe-male); newspaper carriers andtheir supervisors; marketing, ad-vertising, circulation and facili-ties departments; accountants;truck drivers; salesmen; and ad-vertising department artists.

Hundreds of people must worktogether to produce the paperevery day. Hundreds more pro-vide the services necessary to runthe buildings and other facilitieson a newspaper campus.

EXECUTIVEMANAGEMENT

There’s a distinction among newspaper executives between theowners (shareholders), thepresident, the publisher, the generalmanager and the top editor. Theownership of a newspaper isultimately responsible for the

company’s well-being.When The Washington Star

began losing money, the ownersdecided to close the doors. Whenthe Gannett Corporation launchedUSA Today in 1982 as a nationalnewspaper, this was a decision of the owners. Likewise, staff cuts an-nounced by the New York Timesin 2005 were a decision ultimatelymade at the ownership level.

Owners of medium-sized andlarge newspapers typically dele-gate responsibility to the presi-

dent or publisher. The person atthe top of some newspapers hasboth titles; at others, he or she hasone title or the other.

The president or publisher im-plements the guiding concept anddirection for the newspaper en-terprise and is responsible for allaspects of the entire operation. Asthe owner’s representative, thepublisher decides what kinds of readers the newspaper will "tar-get." For example, there are gen-

eral interest newspapers, businesspapers, and sports papers. Thereare also papers for a particularethnic group, such as Hispanic,Afro-American, Korean or Chi-nese, and there are papers for anurban audience and papers for asuburban audience. The publisheralso decides whether a newspaperwill be a daily, or a weekly, or pub-lish, say, five or six days a week.

The publisher typically dele-gates responsibility to a generalmanager for the business opera-tions of the paper and to the edi-tor in chief for management of theeditorial contents.

Newspaper owners have tradi-tionally given their opinions onthe issues of the day in editorials.In most large newspapers today,this important function is dele-gated by the owner to the editorialpage editor and editor in chief based on trust and understanding.

EDITORIAL

MANAGEMENTThe editor in chief runs the

editorial operation of thenewspaper. With senior editors, theeditor in chief decides what will becovered on the front page andestablishes the general policies fornewsroom operations, editorialcontent, opinion pieces, and newsphotography.

The managing editor coordi-nates news coverage day to day.

You will often see the managingeditor on the floor of the news-room, talking with reporters andother editors. Most days, the man-aging editor leads the news meet-ings. During these meetings, edi-tors talk about the stories theirsections are working on and thephotography editor takes notesabout which stories can be illus-trated with good photographs.

Adeputy managing editor is re-sponsible for the administrative

side of the news section and as-sistant managing editors for suchfunctions as production, specialprojects, features, and design.

Each section or desk also has aneditor. For example, there is a met-ropolitan editor, national editor,foreign editor, business editor,and sports editor. Many of themhave deputy editors, as well. (Thecopy desk is run by a copy “chief”because everyone on that desk isa copy editor.)

Opinion editors are separateand distinct from the news editors.Theeditorial page editor has re-sponsibility for the editorials andletters to the editor, while the com-mentary page editor has respon-sibility for the opinion columnswhether they are syndicated, writ-ten in-house, or arrive at the news-paper unsolicited "over-the-tran-som."

Photographs are important to anewspaper, and a photography ed-itor handles this part of the paper.Photographs add information to

the stories and improve thepaper’s look. A newspaper withoutthe work of outstanding photog-rapherslooks dreary.Graphic de-signersdesign a newspaper everyday. This is a daunting task.

Graphics can take many forms:photographs, drawings, charts,graphs or any visual representa-tion that helps you to interpret in-formation. At a newspaper ormagazine, photographs are usu-ally considered as distinct fromgraphics. If the pictures are ma-nipulated in some way, we call

them photo illustrations.

COPY DESK ANDCOPY EDITING

The copy desk is a story's laststop on the way to publication.Copy editors look at both the "big picture" - the information a story conveys - and the "little picture" -punctuation, spelling, grammar,

word usage, sentence structure andconformity to the paper's statedstyle.

Some mistakes caught by thecopy desk can be funny - but onlyif they're corrected before publi-cation. A recent story called folkdancers "rhythmic, jubilant andinfectious." They weren't, in fact,infectious, but their energy was.

A misplaced modifier turned anovel into a teacher: "A formerteacher, Mr. Fowles' first novel .. .became a best-seller." Weak writ-ing led to descriptions of a "newinnovation" and "enormous giants,"as if an innovation could be old ora giant small.

Such errors can make a copyeditor smile, but others, includingfactual errors, could embarrassthe paper and damage its credi-bility. It's the copy desk's job to seethat they don't get into print.

A copy editor must have astrong grasp of correct Englishand pay close attention to detailsbut also must be knowledgeable

about such subjects as politics,economics, history and popularculture.

The copy editor's "tools" includea general usage stylebook, thenewspaper's individualized stylemanual, a dictionary, the Internetand the newspaper's reference li-brary. Most newspapers use theAssociated Press stylebook andcomplement this with their ownstyle rules. The Chicago Manual of Style is used by some newspa-pers.

The Internet has made it easier

to double-check information, buteditors must be careful about thesource of online information to besure it is accurate. In addition toperforming the final editing, copyeditors write the headlines for sto-ries and the captions for photo-graphs, making them conform tothe page designer's specificationsfor length.

1791: The U.S.Congresspasses the FirstAmendment,guaranteeingfreedom of thepress

1800: Ironpresses enableprinting onlarger sheets ofpaper

1808: ElMisisipi ispublished inNew Orleans,as the firstSpanish-language paperin the U.S.

1813: TheTroy, New YorkPost introducesthe term, “UncleSam”

1827:Freedom’sJournal, the firstnewspaper inthe U.S. forAfrican-Americans, ispublished byJohnRusswurm andSamuel Cornish

1828:CherokeePhoenix ispublished, asthe firstnewspaper forNativeAmericans

1831: WilliamLloyd GarrisonbeginspublishingLiberator, anabolitionistnewspaper

1835: TheNew YorkHeraldintroducesdedicatedsections in thenewspaper(business,metropolitan,national)

1841: InLondon, the firsttype-composingmachine isintroduced

1847:FrederickDouglass andMartin Delaneybegin publishingThe North Star

1800



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Who works at a newspaper?

PRESS

CONTROLLER

All newspapers are different. This is a

general example of how a newspapercompany can be organized.

NewspaperOrganizational Chart PRESIDENT / PUBLISHER

GENERALMANAGER

EDITORIN CHIEF

MANAGINGEDITOR (ME)

EDITORIALPAGE EDITOR

OPINIONPAGE EDITOR

DEPUTY ME

ASSTISTANTMANAGING

EDITORS

FEATURESFOREIGNNATIONALSTATELOCAL / CITYPHOTOGRAPHYGRAPHICS

(FACILITIES, HUMAN

RESOURCES, COMPUTERSERVICES, ETC.)

COMMUNITYRELATIONS

PROMOTIONS RESEARCH ARTISTS

SERVICESALES PRE-PRESS DISTRIBUTION

RETAIL CLASSIFIED NATIONAL

ACCOUNTSRECEIVABLE

ACCOUNTSPAYABLE

CREDIT/ COLLECTIONS

GENERALLEDGER

PURCHASING

ADVERTISINGDIRECTOR

CIRCULATIONDIRECTOR

MARKETINGDIRECTOR

PRODUCTIONDIRECTOR

SUPPORTDIRECTORS

1848:Representativesof six New Yorknewspaperpublishers forma news poolwhich becomesthe AssociatedPress

1851: PaulJulius Reuterfounds thenews agencythat becomesReuters wireservice

1856: TheNew OrleansDaily Creole,the firstAfrican-Americandaily, ispublished inEnglish andin French

1865:Reportersduring the CivilWar develop the“invertedpyramid” stylethat puts themost importantfacts at the topof the story theyweretelegraphing

1880: Thefirst half-tonephoto(Shantytown)is publishedin the NewYork DailyGraphic

1892: The weeklyAfro-Americannewspaper isfounded by formerslave John H.Murphy, Sr., in theBaltimore-Washington area; theAfro-American nowhas an announcedreadership of120,000

1896:The firstnewspapercomic, “TheYellow Kid,”appears inthe New YorkAmerican

1905: RobertAbbot beginspublishing TheDefender, inChicago, whichgained circulationover 100,000 and in1956 became theChicago DailyDefender, thelargest black-owneddaily in the world

1907: UPI wasfounded in 1907by E.W. Scrippsas the UnitedPress (UP), and in1958 merged withthe InternationalNews Service(founded byWilliam RandolphHearst) andbecame UPI

1982: USAToday islaunchedand leads achange inthe look ofnewspaperswith theirextensive useof color

1850 1900



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EDITORIALCARTOONS

The word "cartoon" might makeus think of the antics of Daffy Duck or the Road Runner, both of which contain elements of satire; they use humor to make a serious

point. The Simpsons is a cartoonof social commentary, although itis veiled by absurd situations andcaricatures.

While it is generally true thatreading requires more involve-ment from the reader than televi-sion or movies require from view-ers, political cartoons (also callededitorial cartoons) require areader’s added attention. To un-derstand an editorial cartoon, thereader must:

1. Understand what is happen-

ing in the news;2.Make the connection between

the cartoon and one or more cur-rent events and situations, and;

3.Appreciate the irony that thecartoon suggests.

As an example, note the famouscartoon below from American his-tory. Ben Franklin’s "Join or Die"cartoon in his own PennsylvaniaGazette was the first editorial car-toon in an American newspaper.

To appreciate this cartoon, areader must know that Franklin

had developed a plan called the"Albany Plan" to unite the coloniesfor their mutual protection andsecurity. Franklin asserted thatone of the factors that had led to arecent French attack on Virginiahad been the lack of unity amongthe colonies. He therefore showeda snake with severed sections.

His caption (cutline) suggestedthat the whole serpent would bethreatening to a potential enemywhereas the severed parts invitedan enemy to divide and conquer.

If you understand political car-toons, you are probably well-versed in history and currentevents. If they make you angry —

or smug — you probably holdstrong opinions and values.Many political cartoonists have

long and distinguished careers.They runs ideas past their editorand then polishes the one or twotop political cartoon ideas for hisreview.

Not all cartoons are done in-house at the paper. For the Com-mentary page, editors look forsyndicated cartoons that best il-lustrate an issue that columnistsaddress in that day’s paper.

Analyzing editorialcartoons

Looking at apolitical cartoon,ask yourself:

1. Who ispictured?

2. What are theydoing?

3. What are theysaying?

4. What do youhave to know abouthistory and currentevents tounderstand whatthe cartoon means?

5. What does thecartoon mean?

6. What makes itwork?

7. How does yourphilosophical orpolitical alignmentinfluence whether you consider itfunny? Or does itget you steamed?



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A day in the life of a newspaper

First, we present a broadoverview of those in the newsdepartment because they are theones we most likely associatewith the newspaper. Their rep-resentative day can be lively, in-teresting, and unpredictable. Ed-itors and reporters are at it fromthe moment they wake up, check-

ing their own paper at home andmonitoring the competition via

the Web and television. In manycases, editors are making as-signments by phone and e-mailbefore they even come into thenewsroom. Remember, the 9/11attack came as reporters and ed-itors were still getting dressed forwork.

At any given moment, a re-

porter is probably working someplace in the world. Reporters

overseas are reporting, writingand filing stories while the rest of us are asleep. Local reportersare often called out early bybreaking news events, break-fasts with newsmakers and thelike.

You can set your watch by fivekey times in the newsroom each

day. (Note: Actual times vary bynewspaper) These are the:

When we consider "A Day in the Life of A Newspaper," our first inclination may be to think ofreporters and editors and that’s understandable.

However, the organization of a newspaper ismultifaceted and it’s a business. So, there are

accountants, customer service representatives, salespeople, computer service technicians, human

resource professionals and people to maintain thebuildings and grounds – to name just a few of themany skills required to operate the company. All of

them will be represented in this snapshot of arepresentative day at a newspaper.

11 a.m. news meeting chaired by the managing editor where news editors

brainstorm about coverage of the day's developments

4 p.m. news meeting chaired by the editor-in-chief and the managing editor

where the desk editors pitch their best stories for page one

5:30 p.m. page one meeting in the editor-in-chief's office where the seven

page-one stories and accompanying photos are selected, immediately

followed by the front-page design meeting

10:30 p.m. deadline for the first edition

12:30 a.m. deadline for the final edition.

Not included in this list are theseries of deadlines for copy thatis edited throughout the day forthe non-news sections of thepaper, for setting the color for in-dividual pages and for ensuringthat copy flows at a steady pacefrom the news department to theproduction department all dayand up until the final deadlines.

Desk editors or their deputiesare at their desks in the news-room by 9:30 a.m., fielding callsfrom reporters and checkingthe news wire services that

come into the company com-puter system. They also con-tinue to monitor television newsreporting and Web sitesthroughout the day.

The dayside copy desk editorswork throughout the day on copyfor advanced sections and forthe feature sections of the dailypaper that are less likely to beimpacted by breaking newsevents (for example, arts pages,letters to the editor).

Reporters are in and out of thenewsroom all day long on as-signment, meeting sources andcovering news events. They rou-tinely update their desk editorson big news developments. Themanaging editor and other sen-

ior editors, meanwhile, are in-teracting with desk editors, re-porters, graphics artists,photographers and copy editors.

After the page one stories are

selected in the evening, each of the desk editors completes theplanning of their respective sec-tions, adding or eliminating sto-ries depending on the amount of space available to them. Theyare also working with the newsdesk on the layout and design of the pages. The night editors oneach desk are then charged withbringing the whole thing to-gether on deadline. The assistantmanaging editor for productionand the news editor are the keyplayers from here on out. They

routinely check in with the edi-tor in chief or the managing ed-itor in the event of big breakingnews, particularly if it requireschanges in the front page.

In most jobs, the day gets eas-ier as it goes on; in the newsroomthe pace picks up as the day goeson and we move closer andcloser to deadline. Being anewsman is also a 24-hour-a-day,7-day-a-week job because you

just never know when big newsis going to happen.

Desk editors begin planningfor the next day before they leavein the evening, looking over theschedule of events in the day-book and talking to reportersabout their coverage plans.

The editor in chief and themanaging editor routinely checkin from home via computer, sign-ing off on the front page afterchanging any headlines and fine-

tuning any stories they feel needimprovement.

So, for those working out of thenewsroom, "fluid" is the best termto describe any given day. For theentire newspaper companywhen does the day begin? Well, itcan begin at any time because it’scontinual. So, let’s be arbitrary inlooking at the newspaper as awhole and start at 8:30 a.m. withthe understanding that we canpresent only snapshot examplesof what a day might look like forthose employees who help make

possible the daily miracle thatbest describes the process of turning blank pages into a news-paper each day of the week.



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Design of a newspaper

A reader’s first impression of a newspapercomes from its design. Here are examples of the front page of four different newspapersfrom the same day. As you can see, the visual

look of newspapers can vary greatly.



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GRAPHIC DESIGNNewspapers use graphics

carefully. When used with newsarticles, they are included tomake information morecomprehensible. Charts andgraphs provide a quick and clean

way to visualize what a story is trying to convey and they canadd detail and context.

In feature sections, graphicsmight be used to clarify infor-mation, but they also might beused to entertain or to make apoint. Caricatures, collages, andthe size and style of type fontsare designed to convey informa-tion to readers.

In a larger sense, the graphicsdepartment is responsible for areader’s first impression of thenewspaper. Design choices in-

clude the size and style of fontsthat will be used throughout thenewspaper, the length of stories,use of boxes and rules, and spac-ing between elements. It is theoverall design that establishesthe feeling of the newspaper andallows us to distinguish between

The Washington Times, the WallStreet Journal, USA Today, theWashington Post, and othernewspapers.

Within a newspaper, the de-sign of the news section is dif-ferent from the design of the en-tertainment section. The sizeand weight of headlines will dif-fer; usually, photos and othergraphics will be more promi-nent in the paper’s entertain-

ment section. The design of eachsection should be appropriate toits content.




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Let’s now take a look at what’s going on in the rest of the newspaper, and how that connects with theactivities of the newsroom. We’ll present this as a

representative schedule.

1:30 p.m.: Thedesk editor forfeatures readsher reporter’sstory onadoptions,makes a coupleof changeswhich shediscusses withthe reporter,then places thestory in a folder

on the computernetwork.

8:30 9:30 10:30 11:30 12:30 1:30 2:30 3:30 4:30 5:30 6:30 7:30

5:15 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.:Deadlines for electronictransmission of various sectionsfrom News to Pre-Press:5:15 p.m. Commentary, editorial

and comics7:15 p.m. Features and movies9:45 p.m. Business

10:00 p.m. Metro10:15 p.m. News10:30 p.m. Sports

Pre-press paginates thenewspaper, placing each page inthe order in which it will be printed.The negatives are sent to the PlateRoom where information from thenegatives will be burned ontoaluminum plates, to be placed onthe presses.

5:30 p.m.: Theeditor in chiefchairs the pageone meeting,where the pageone stories andaccompanyingphotos areselected,immediatelyfollowed by thefront-pagedesign meeting.

4:00 p.m.:Final pagecounts for themain edition aredecided andlocked in.

4:00 p.m.: Inthe regularafternoon newsmeeting, adozen storiesare selected forthe front page,out of 20 or morepresented forconsideration.

1:00p.m.:A newsmaker

arrives at thepaper for ameeting with theeditorial board.The meetingyields news thatis consideredworthy of frontpage treatmentin the next day’snewspaper.

11:20 a.m.:The buildingthat houses theprinting pressesexperiences a10-second lossof power.Emergencygenerators areactivatedautomatically.

11:00 a.m.:The managingeditor (ME)begins themorning newsmeeting witheditors and keyreporters.

10:45 a.m.:The generalmanagerreviews aproposal onhow to increasethe page viewsand uniquevisitors to thenewspaper’sweb site.

10:00 a.m.: Ahigh schoolclass arrives fora tour of anewspaper.

8:30 – 9:00a.m.:Employees inbusinessoperationsarrive for work.

9:30 a.m.:A reporterreceives a pressrelease alongwith a 25-pagestudy from theNationalAdoption DayCoalition. Sheand her editordecide to coverthe story.

2:45 p.m.:The newspaperhosts a visitorganized forforeign

journalists.

2:30 p.m.:HumanResourcesprocesseshealth benefitsfor three newemployees.

Buildings andgrounds staffprepare for aweekendcleaning thefloor-to-ceilingnewsroomwindows.

2:15 p.m.:The advertisingdirector reviewsspecial sectionproposals thatwill besubmitted toprospectiveadvertisers.

2:00 p.m.:A photographerin Iraq sendsgreat photos tothe photo editor,who bringsthem to theforeign newseditor and themanagingeditor.

1:40 p.m.:The manager ofthe Newspaperin Educationprogram (NIE)receives a callfrom a localhigh schoolteacher.

1:32 p.m.: Thecopy editorretrieves andedits the storyon AdoptionDay and writesa headline:“More womenwant to adopt;few do.”

1:30 p.m.:Early press runpage counts arelocked in andpresses madeready.

Editors discuss how to cover the day’s news. Editors at computer work stations prepare the pages and edit copy.

Photographersand a reportercover the news.



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In the early morning hours,newspapers are delivered tocustomers at their homesand through coin boxes.


8:30 9:30 10:30 11:30 12:30 1:30 2:30 3:30 4:30 5:30 6:30 7:30 8:30

12:30 a.m.:Deadline forstories in thefinal edition.

10:30 p.m.:Deadline forstories for thefirst edition.

10:10 p.m. –12:40 a.m.:Negatives aresent from Pre-Press to thePlate Room.Deadlines fornegatives ofFinal Editioncopy to be sent

to the PlateRoom:12:00 a.m.Metro Section12:15 a.m.News Section12:30 a.m.Sports Section

1:00 a.m.Final negativesshipped.

11:00 p.m. – 12:30 a.m.: Theone-star editions are printed. Atfirst, the presses run slowly sopressmen can pull papers from theproduction line and check them tobe certain the colors are clear andthat print material, photos andgraphics are in alignment. Theytweak the computers that controlthe density of each color as eachis applied to the newsprint.

11:45 p.m.:Trucks areloaded withone-stareditions fordelivery tocarriers anddistributors inoutlying areas.

12:00 a.m.: One or more pressesare rolling, and an extra press iskept in reserve in case one goesdown. 40,000 newspapers an hour

fly off the presses – in color! Thecontinuous sheet of newsprintpasses through the presses fasterthan the eye can see, acrossrubber rollers onto which imageshave been transferred fromaluminum plates. Each roller isinked with one of 4 colors – cyan,magenta, yellow, and black. Eachcolor is transferred to the newsprintfrom the rollers in correctproportions.

12:56 - 2:36 a.m.: Copies of theone-star edition are being truckedto distributors for delivery to homesubscribers.

1:30 - 3:30a.m.: The 2-star FinalEditionnewspapers rolloff the pressesand are loadedonto trucks fordelivery to localcommunities.

4:00 a.m.: The circulation director meets with newscarriers in the field to thank them for having deliverednewspapers to homes and stores in the midst ofinclement weather.

8:30 a.m.:Another day,another DailyMiracle .

The press room is where the final newspaper product comes to life.

Newspapers are printed(left) and stacked inbundles for delivery vehicles.



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Photography There have been dramatic

changes in the way photographsare obtained and how they areused in a daily newspaper. A hundred years ago, editors hired

artists to trace newsworthy photographs by hand onto slabsof wood. These carvings, or"woodcuts," were accompanied

by "cutlines" – a few words ofexplanation. As photography developed, the newspaperindustry began using halftonephotographs. All the shades ofgray in a picture were translatedinto tiny black dots of varying

sizes. The first newspaperphotograph appeared in the New York Daily Graphic in 1880.

In the past, photographers

could be very creative about howthey got their film back to theireditors on deadline. They hiredhorses; they sent their materialsby boat and trains. They evenconverted airplanes into flyingdarkroom laboratories. Newspa-

pers used datelines to tell read-ers where and when a story orpicture originated.

For the last 20 years, news-paper photographs have been

scanned as pixels and read asdigital zeroes and ones. Withlittle more than a high-resolu-tion camera, a laptop and a cellphone, the photographer caninstantly transmit pictures toand from almost every corner

of the world.The most important changefor newspaper readers, however,is the way that pictures are usedto convey information. Editors

may reach for a simple portraitto show how the subject of an in-terview appears, but more andmore often they require picturesto convey the essential actionsand emotions that fit the story.

There are different kinds of

photographs in a newspaper.Compare the photographs ac-companying news articles tophotographs accompanying fea-ture articles and sports events.

Different sections of the newspaper use photos andgraphics in different ways. Compare the use of

photographs and illustrations in the news, sports,and feature sections.

Inside news pages use photos and graphics tocommunicate information in the most accessible manner.Timelines, maps and charts are some of the graphic tools used to communicate effectively with the reader.

Sports pages make dramatic use of action photography and statistical graphics to tell stories in a style thatreflects the content, which is a combination of news andentertainment.

Feature pages use photography and illustrations to pull the reader into softer, more entertaining content.






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Presses in the 18th and 19th centuries were hand powered. Type was set by hand, a roller inked the type, and singlepages were fed into a press by hand. Thislabor-intensive process was tedious andslow.

By the 1850s, technology made possi-ble the mass production of newspapersusing presses powered by steam engines.Type was still set by hand until the latterpart of the century with the introductionof "linotype" machines that had keys likethose on a typewriter.

Presses older than 20 years are oftenapproaching the end of their expected lifecycles. These presses typically printabout 45,000 papers per hour and canprint full color on a select number of pages.

Today’s state-of-the-art presses are far

more efficient than the ones they are re-placing. They utilize computer-controlledmotors, operate more quietly, and requirefar less maintenance because they havefewer components.

New tower presses are manufacturedin a vertical configuration to save much-needed floor space. They print about80,000 papers an hour. The same presscan print on different size and weight pa-pers simultaneously and can print fullcolor on each page.

MAN Roland is the world’s largestmanufacturer of newspaper presses. Oneof every 3 newspaper presses in the worldis manufactured by this company. One of its new presses is six stories tall and morethan two football fields long.

Digital printing is another printing in-novation. Just as digital cameras arechanging how we take, process, and ma-nipulate photos, digital printing enablespresses to be smaller and controlled bysoftware.

If we look into the distance, some fu-turists are predicting that newspaperswill be "custom-made." That is, newspa-per subscribers will tell the newspaperwhat types of news coverage they want.

The newspaper will place in each person’shome a special printer and every day, thenewspaper will transmit a copy of thatday’s custom-made newspaper via the In-ternet. It will be designed to meet the cus-tomer’s specifications for news. Do youthink this might really ever happen? Well,guess what. Several leading world news-papers are participating in a test being co-ordinated by Personal News, a companyin the Munich-Augsburg area of Germany.

Composing RoomThe newspaper pages with final copy,

headlines and graphics are “composed”on a computer by page designers working on the copy desk and in the editorialgraphics department. The process isentirely electronic.

In the old days — just a few years ago— once the copy was edited it went to thecomposing room. There men and womenused Exacto® knives to cut out articlesthey then "glued" in place on page boards,which were full-sized sheets of graph

paper. They used hot wax to place the ar-ticles and images onto the correct pages.The wax held them in place and allowedthe compositors to reposition them asnecessary. Borders or rules were created

with colored tape of various widths.When the completed pages were ap-

proved by an editor, they were taken to thecamera room, where they were placed ona glass-covered tray that tilted verticallyin front of a six-foot camera that lookedlike one your great-grandparents might

have used. The camera operator snappeda picture and the full-sized broadsheet ortabloid-page negatives were developedinside the camera and dried as they weredelivered to the adjoining stripping rooma few moments later, where workers cre-ated a separate film for each of the pro-duction colors needed to create full-colorpictures – cyan, magenta, yellow andblack – CMYK. (Every color picture inyour newspaper is produced from thesefour colors and each color requires a sep-arate negative.)

PaginationCopy and images are sent electronically

to a paginator who lays out the pages ona computer and electronically sends them to the composing room. There the pagesare paired in the order in which they willbe printed. This is different from putting the pages in numerical order.

For example, take a look at the fourpages of a single sheet of a newspaper. If the page is pulled from a section that has20 pages, you will see that pages 1 and 20

— the first and last pages — are paired or"married" to each other. They are printedas one sheet. In like manner, pages 2 and19 are printed together as are pages 3 and18, 4 and 17 etc. When the pages are in

order, they are sent electronically to theimagers. The imaging machines convertthe digital computer language to film,which is then taken to the plate room asit was in the past.

Plate RoomPrinting plates are flexible, light-weightaluminum sheets that are treated to besensitive to light, much like photographicfilm. Before the plates can be used, amachine punches holes along the side,like the holes in composition paper. Theplates are stacked inside a plate- making machine, ready to slip into place when thefilm is ready.

The films — negatives that will be usedto print pages — are stacked on the edgeof the machine into which they will be fed

one-by-one, either automatically or man-ually, depending on the machine.

When film enters the machine, a vac-uum pulls it flat against the aluminumplate onto which a bright light burns theimage. The plate moves on a conveyor toa second machine that develops the imageand scrubs away the plate’s protectivefilm. When the image is fully developed,a conveyor feeds it into a final machinethat bends the edges where the holeshave been punched. Then the plates areready to be "tied on" or "bent on" to theprinting press.

At some newspapers, pages are trans-mitted directly from the computers to thepresses. That’s a far cry from the dayswhen customers would receive their morn-ing paper 45 minutes late because the van

carrying the plates from the newsroom toan offsite printing plant got a flat tire.

Press Room When the plates are ready, pressmen

attach them to cylinders in the webpresses — so called because of the way the newsprint weaves through them. Web presses simultaneously print bothsides of the continuous newsprint roll.The presses are designed so that a newroll falls into place when the previousroll is used up.

The ink spreads over the plates. Anelectrical charge causes the ink to adhereto the copy. Images that are exposed in thedeveloping stage are transferred — back-wards — to a rubber blanket that stampsthe impression on the newsprint as it

speeds through the press. This process of transferring ink from the plate to theblanket and from the blanket to newsprintis called offset printing.

The entire process takes a fraction of asecond once the presses get rolling. Ad-

justing and testing make the process beginslowly, but the presses then begin runningvery fast. More impressive than merespeed, each four-color picture is a com-posite of four pictures. The newsprintpasses rapidly through cyan, magenta, yel-low and black presses to build a four colorpicture in the blink of an eye. The precision

required to print four perfectly registeredpictures — along with all the other pagesthat are cut and folded in less than a sec-ond — is an exceptional feat of technology.

Start the presses

Pressmen check newspapers for color and alignment.



P A GE

1 7

T h e D A I L Y M

i r a c l e

Did you know? There are 1,456 daily

newspapers in the U.S.

There are 6,580 dailynewspapers worldwide

More than 55 millionpeople purchase anewspaper each day inthe U.S.

395 million peoplepurchase a newspaperworldwide on any givenday

Newsprint, theuncoated low-cost paperon which a newspaper isprinted, is made fromwood pulp and recoveredfiber from recycled paper

Two hundrednewsprint mills worldwideproduce nearly 40 milliontons of newsprint a year.The largest mill in theworld is in Japan.

Nearly eight in 10adults (78.6%) in the top50 U.S. markets read anewspaper during thecourse of a week

More than half of alladults (53.4%) in the top50 markets read a dailynewspaper every

weekday

57% of men and 52%of women in the U.S. reada daily newspaper

What happens to newspapersafter they are printed? They arestrapped in bundles and taken toloading bays where trucks wait to carry them to theirdestinations.

Presses often start runningbetween 11:00 and 11:30 p.m. Byabout 11:40, the first bundles arebeing loaded for outlying areas.The destinations farthest awayare shipped first. All of the 1-stareditions are on their way byabout 1:15 a.m. (One or two starsin the folio of the cover identifiesthe edition. The word "FINAL"appears above the last edition of the morning.)

The pressmen make anychanges that have come from

the newsroom since the first runstarted, and the 2-star editionstarts rolling off the presses atabout 1:45 a.m. By 3:30 a.m., allthe newspapers are on their way.

Sunday newspapers are usu-ally much larger than weekdayeditions, because of more ad-vertising and additional features.

CIRCULATIONThe Circulation Division is

responsible for all sales of the

newspaper. Circulation is critical to a newspaper’s successbecause advertising rates arelinked to a newspaper’sreadership. The more readers anewspaper has, the more it cancharge to advertise in its pages.

Paperboys used to be the mostvisible circulation departmentemployees, throwing newspa-pers from their bicycles to sub-scribers’ front doors. Then girlsstarted taking newspaper routes.

Now, at most big newspapers,adult route carriers throw news-papers from their cars or vansbefore most of us are out of bedin the morning.

The director of a circulationdepartment plans how to main-tain and increase the newspa-per’s circulation. He is respon-sible for providing newspapersfor special events and promo-tions; coin rack placement, re-pair, and maintenance; streethawkers; route carriers; theirmanagers and supervisors; back

issues; data entry; and customerservice.

When the newspapers reachtheir intended regions, they aredelivered to distributors or car-riers. Some newspapers areplaced in stores, others in coinracks and still others are deliv-ered to homes, schools, hospitals,hawkers (people who stand onstreet corners selling the news-papers) and hotels.

In addition to delivering thenewspaper, circulation alsoseeks to increase readership byundertaking campaigns that usetelemarketing, direct mail ad-vertising, special promotions,rack cards, and kiosk sales. Thisrequires familiarity with the de-mographic make-up of the mar-ket and how the many sections of the newspaper meet each per-son’s individual needs.

Circulation is also responsible

for handling all of the needs of our customers through the Sub-scriber Services Department. If subscribers want to start, stop, orreport a service issue, they con-tact this department. Customerscan speak directly with a liverepresentative, use an automatedvoice response system, or sendinformation via the Internet.

NEWSPAPERSIN EDUCATION

Many schools around the

country recognize the educa-tional value of newspapers. Theyparticipate in Newspaper in Ed-ucation (NIE) programs, whereschools receive sponsored or re-duced rate newspapers for use inlanguage arts, social studies, sci-ence, math, character educationand a wide variety of other sub-

jects and programs.NIE improves student liter-

acy. In Measuring Success, a re-port commissioned by the News-paper Association of America(NAA) Foundation, Prof. DanielSullivan of the University of Min-nesota found: "When controllingfor other factors, data suggestthat having an NIE program forat least some classrooms at aschool will increase the overallperformance of the school, on av-erage, by about 10 percent." The

complete report is available on-line at http://www.naafounda-tion.org/pdf/measure suc-cess10.pdf

Janet Eichenberg, a teacher atJohn Wright Middle School, par-ticipates in the NIE program.She says: “The newspaper is agreat learning tool that is useddaily in my homeroom, languagearts and reading classes.”

“Several of my students takethe paper home with them on adaily basis. They understand thatreading a newspaper daily will

make them a life-long learner.”Young people who grow up

without any newspaper in theirhomes have no idea what theyare missing, not only locally butnationally and around the world.If you have a friend who doesn’thave a newspaper delivered tothe house every day, try to talk toyour friend’s parents about howimportant a daily newspaper isto your friend’s overall educa-tion. Perhaps you can make a dif-ference.

Information on the Newspa-per in Education program isavailable by calling your localnewspaper.

FINANCIAL

SERVICESManaging money is a key partof any business. A newspaper’schief financial officer isresponsible for handling thecompany’s finances, typically reporting directly to thepresident or to the generalmanager.

Companies follow standardaccounting procedures and fi-nancial practices, managingmoney and preparing reportsthat show where the newspaperis making money and where it isspending it, how much money ithas to pay bills, and how muchand when money is coming intothe company through advertis-ing, newspaper sales, and othermeans.

A company also must operateaccording to a budget or spend-ing plan, and make wise pur-chasing decisions in order to getthe best price and quality for itsmoney when buying everything

from newsprint to food for theemployee cafeteria.

SERVICEDEPARTMENTS

Some jobs at a newspaper areneeded to support the work ofeverybody involved directly increating and sustaining thenewspaper.

Two examples of this support

role are computer services andfacilities management. While re-

porters are busy at their jobs,and the advertising sales ac-count executives, circulation andfinancial managers, and pressoperators are busy at theirs, thecompany needs to make surethat their computers and cellphones are up-to-date and work-ing, that the building is main-tained properly, that the cafete-ria provides healthy and tastyfood, and that all personnel is-sues are handled well.

Newspapers and informationcompanies can be very profitable.In the entire U.S., the totalamount of money spent each year to advertise in newspapers isaround $45 billion.

The largest newspaper groupin the country in terms of circu-lation is the Gannett Company.Their 99 daily newspapers havea combined daily paid circula-tion of 7.6 million, which resultedin $7.4 billion in earnings in2004. Besides its daily newspa-pers, its businesses includemany weekly publications, 21television stations, more than130 web sites, the Gannett NewsService, and Gannett Offset, acommercial printing operation.

The Tribune Company owns14 daily newspapers includingthe Chicago Tribune, Newsday,the (Baltimore) Sun, and the LosAngeles Times. Tribune also hasbroadcast holdings that include25 TV stations, cable networkWGN, stakes in the WB Televi-sion Network and the TV FoodNetwork. It also owns theChicago Cubs baseball team andhas numerous Internet invest-ments. Revenue in 2004 was $5.7billion. Except for the Los Angles

Times, profit margins at news-papers owned by the TribuneCompany average close to 30%.The Los Angeles Times marginsare lower.

Knight Ridder is the 3rdlargest owner of newspapers inthe U.S. The company’s newspa-per division has 32 dailies andmore than 24 non-daily newspa-pers. Knight Ridder describes it-self as "a communications com-pany engaged primarily innewspaper and Internet pub-lishing." Revenue in 2004 was $3

billion.

Distributing to the customer

Newspapers are loaded onto waiting trucks and vans and for delivery.



T h e D A I L Y M i r a c l e

P A G E

1 8

ADVERTISINGThe advertising sales staff

seeks to develop lasting relationships with those who

advertise in the newspaper. Working hard and emphasizing mutually beneficial relationshipsis part of the company’s culture.It’s also a good businesspractice, because advertising plays such a key role in anewspaper’s ability to succeed.

Let’s work some numbers: Itcosts about 40¢ to 50¢ just forthe newsprint and delivery of each newspaper. This does notinclude the cost of salaries,computers, printing presses, or

any of the other steps in thepublishing process.No matter how many news-

papers a publisher sells, he isnot going to get rich when eachnewspaper sells for 25¢ to 50¢and it costs 40¢ to 50¢ to print!Fortunately, newspapers are anefficient and cost-effective wayfor retailers to reach a greatnumber of people.

Revenue from advertising iswhat makes newspapers afford-able to a mass audience of read-ers. Advertising costs in elec-tronic media that reach millionsof people are too expensive formost regional and local retailers.But retailers know through longexperience that advertising innewspapers brings them results.

Account executives (AEs) selladvertising space. They consultwith and develop relationshipswith advertisers and, as an in-centive, usually receive salescommissions in addition to theirsalaries. On smaller papers,AEs sometimes work only on

commissions, which might beup to 20% of the cost of the ad tothe advertiser.

Sometimes the advertiser ortheir advertising agency de-signs the ads; sometimesgraphic artists in the newspa-per’s marketing department dothis. Whoever designs them, it isimportant for the advertiser tobe happy with the results.

There are three categories of advertising: retail, classified,and national. In 2003, spendingon retail ads was $21.3 billion,

on classified ads $15.8 billion,and on national advertising $7.8

billion. The $44.9 billion spenton advertising in newspapersthat year was roughly 18.3% of all ad expenditures.

Ads are so important to anewspaper’s revenue that whenthe newspaper is laid out eachday, the advertising is placedfirst, while allowing a certainamount of space for news con-tent. The space that remains fornews, information and opinionis called the news hole.

CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING

Most people think ofclassified ads as a place to look when they need a job or want tosell something. Yet classified adshave many purposes.

Classified ads appear in a spe-cially designated section and

are arranged by category, orclassification, for automobiles,real estate, job recruitment andso on. Classified ads run eitheras display ads (airy ads withgraphics and headlines) or"liner" ads (just a few lines of type). Both versions are classi-fied ads, along with legal no-tices and personal ads.

RETAIL ADVERTISING

Retail advertising is display

advertising by local merchantsthat runs throughout anewspaper.

Retail advertising rates varyaccording to the paper’s circu-lation, the size of the ad, its po-sition in the newspaper, thenumber of times it is scheduledto run and whether or not the adis black and white or color. Adstypically make up 50-75% of anewspaper’s content. Theamount of advertising deter-mines how many pages will bein the newspaper on any givenday.

NATIONAL ADVERTISING

National advertising consistsof ads run by organizations witha national or regional presence that generally advertise in many newspapers and markets. Theadvertising may originate atcompany headquarters locatedhundreds of miles away, and thesame ad run in many publications.

ADVOCACY ADVERTISING

A sub-category of nationaladvertising is advocacy advertising which, as the name

implies, is advertising by organizations or even individuals

who advocate a position or are trying to persuade a course ofaction by government or thepublic.

Businesses, lobbying groups,nonprofit organizations, watch-dog groups and many othersregularly place advocacy ad-vertising in the paper to per-suade Congress, the president,state legislators, the public andeven foreign nations of their po-sitions.

INTERNET ADVERTISING

The Internet provides another

source of revenue fornewspapers as they build Websites to complement their printpublications.

Sometimes newspapers offerbanners or links to advertisersinstead of using actual ads ontheir Web sites. Although Inter-net advertising may be less than5% of a newspaper’s gross rev-enues, it can represent nearlyhalf of a newspaper’s advertis-ing growth, according to anApril 2005 annual survey byBorrell Associates.

Borrell projects local onlineadvertising to increase by 51%over the previous year, whennewspapers generated about$1.7 billion from their Internetoperations.

MARKETING What do you suppose is the

average age of newspaper

readers?If you are 17, triple your age

and you’ll be close to the rightanswer – which is 53. Those whoobtain their news off of the In-ternet are much younger.

And many people use bothnewspapers and the Internet forthe news.

Such information is very im-portant for a newspaper. It tellsthe business and editorial man-agement that younger readersneed to be attracted at the same

time that older readers need tocontinue to be satisfied.

Newspaper marketing de-partments want to increase thenumber of readers, and provideservices that support the news-paper’s advertising sales efforts.

Marketing department em-ployees research current readertrends and preferences. Busi-ness and editorial managementthen analyze research informa-tion. Market-driven newspapersrespond to reader preferenceswithin the context of the paper’soverall direction and identity.

The marketing departmentthen designs ad campaigns,using such methods as radio andtelevision ads, bus and billboardposters, and rack cards to at-tract people to the newspaper

and, hopefully, to gain more reg-ular readers.A strong brand identity helps

attract peoples’ attention.

Researching TheMarket

It’s important to know yourcustomer. Marketing departments at newspapers areresponsible for identifying

general information about adultsin the region they serve andabout the people who read thenewspaper. The information isused to inform editors aboutreader preferences and to designads and focus circulation onpeople most likely to subscribe.

Newspapers contract with in-dependent research companiesfor such studies. ScarboroughResearch specializes in mediaand lifestyle research.

Marketing Art/Graphics

Many newspapers have twoseparate graphics departments— one that works with the news-room and another that is part ofadvertising and marketing.

Marketing graphics designsdisplay ads and any art or de-sign projects that do not fall tothe news department.

Newspapers are a business

NewspaperFacts The cost of printing

and delivering anewspaper is usuallymore than the purchaseprice.

55% of homebuyersuse the newspaper to finda new home.1

A roll of newsprintweighs nearly a ton. Amid-size newspaper mayuse 40-50 rolls a day.That’s as heavy as an M-1 Abrams Main Battle Tank(or 320,000-400,000Quarter-Pounders –before cooking).

Americannewspapers use more

than ten million metrictons (eleven million shortor U.S. tons) of newsprint

are used every year. Wedon’t have enough cowsfor that many Quarter-Pounders.

The United Stateshas about 1,450 dailynewspapers and 6,700weeklies.

More than 55% ofnewspaper readers have

some post-secondaryschool education.

May 3 is World PressFreedom Day.

In 2004, 71 journalistswere killed.2

99.4% of all retailersconsider the newspapertheir primary advertisingmedium.3

The original HardyBoys novels were ghostwritten by Leslie McFarlane(as Franklin W. Dixon), whoworked at the Springfield(Mass.) Republican.

Newspapermen whobecame noteworthynovelists include Sinclair

Lewis; Ernest Hemingway;Theodore Dreiser; F. ScottFitzgerald; and SamuelClemons, writing as MarkTwain.

The oldest Americannewspaper still incirculation is the HartfordCourant (then TheConnecticut Current)founded in 1764.

__________1 Newspaper Association of America2 World Association of Newspapers3 Mike McDaniels,BusinessKnowledSource.com

Subscriber and advertiser information is kept in computerdatabases to provide efficient and timely service.



D E C E MB E R

1 4 ,2 0 0 5

P a g e

1 9

T h e D A I L

Y Mi r a c l e

How to Read A Newspaper, By Walter Cronkite

International Paper asked

Walter Cronkite, for years

television’s foremost news

anchorman, and an ardent

advocate of the need for a free

people to remain free by keep-

ing fully informed, to tell you

how your newspaper can help

you cope better with your world

each day.

If you’re like most people

you try to keep up with the newsby watching it on television.

That’s how 65% of us get

100% of our news – from the

24-odd-minute TV news broad-

cast each evening.

The problem – and I know

the frustration of it firsthand –is that unless something really

special happens, we in TV news

have to put severe time

limitations on every story, even

the most complicated and im-

portant ones.

Get More ThanHeadlines

So what we bring you is pri-

marily a front-page headline

service. To get all you need to

know, you have to flesh out those

headlines with a complete

account of the news from a

well edited and thorough news-paper.

Is it really necessary to get

the whole story? Dorothy

Greene Friendly put it this way:

“What the American people

don’t know can kill them.”

Amen.

News people have a

responsibility. And so do you.

Ours is to report the news fairly,

accurately and completely.

Yours is to keep yourself

informed everyday.

I’ll never forget thequotation hanging in Edward

R. Murrow’s CBS office. It was

from Thoreau: “It takes two to

speak the truth – one to speak

and one to hear.”

Take A Three

Minute OverviewHere’s how I tackle the

paper. For starters, I take athree-minute overview of the

news. No need to go to the

sports section first, or the TV

listings. With my overview

you’ll get there quickly enough.

First I scan through the front-

page headlines, look at the pic-

tures and read the

captions. I do the same thing

page by page front to back.Only then do I go back for the

whole feast.

The way the front page is

“made up” tells you plenty. For

one thing, headline type size

will tell you how the paper’s

editor ranks the stories on

relative importance. A major

crop failure in Russia should

get larger type than an

overturned truck of wheat on

the Interstate, for example.

Which Is The MainStory?

You’ll find the main or lead

story in the farthest upper-right

hand column. Why? Tradition.

Newspapers used to appear on

newsstands folded and dis-

played with their top right-hand

quarter showing. They made up

the front page with the lead

story there to entice readers.

You’ll find the second most

important story at the top far

left, unless it’s related to the

lead story. Do you have to readall the stories in the paper?Gosh, no. But you check them

all. Maybe the one that appears

at first to be the least appealing

will be the one that will most

effect your life.

News Is Informa-

tion, PeriodA good newspaper

provide four basic ingredients

to help you wrap your mind

around the news: information,

background, analysis and in-

terpretation.

Rule #1 of American journalism is: “News columns

are reserved only for news.”

What is news? It is information

only. You can tell a good

newspaper story. It just reportsthe news. It doesn’t try to slant

it. And it gives you both sides of

the story.

Look out for a lot of

adjectives and adverbs. They

don’t belong in an objective

news story. They tend to color

and slant it so you may come toa wrong conclusion.

Do look for bylines,

datelines and the news

service sources of articles.

These will also help you judge a

story’s importance and its facts.

As you read a story you can

weigh its truthfulness by asking

yourself, “Who said so?” Look

out for “facts” that come fromunnamed sources, such as “a

highly placed government offi-

cial.” This could top you off that the story is not quite true,

or that someone –

usually in Washington – is

sending up a “trial balloon” to

see if something that may hap-

pen or be proposed gets a good

reception.

Another tip: check for

“Corrections” items. A good

newspaper will straighten out

false or wrong information as

soon as it discovers its error. A

less conscientious one will let it

slide or bury it.

An Upside DownPyramid

Reporters write news

stories in a special way called

the “inverted pyramid” style.

That means they start with the

end, the climax of the story, with

the most important facts first,then building more details in

order of importance. This is

unlike the telling or writing of

most stories, where you usually

start at the beginning and save

the climax for last. Knowing

about the newspaper’s “inverted

pyramid” style will help you sift

facts.

A well-reported story will

tell you “who”, “what,” “when,”

“where,” and “how.” The best

newspapers will go on to tellyou “why.” “Why” is often miss-

ing. And that may be the key in-

gredient.

Many important stories are

flanked by “sidebars.” These

are supporting stories that offer,

not news, but the “why” – back-

ground and analysis – to help

you understand and evaluate it.Background offers helpful

facts. Analysis frequently

includes opinion. So it shouldbe – and usually is – carefully

labeled as such. It’s generally

by-lined by an expert on the

subject who explains the causes

of the news and its possible

consequences to you. No good

newspaper will mix interpreta-

tion with the “hard” news, ei-ther. Interpretation goes be-

yond analysis and tells you not

just what will probably happen,

but what ought to happen. This

should be clearly labeled, or at

best, reserved for the editorial

page or “op-ed” (opposite the

editorial) page.

Form Your OwnOpinion First

I form my own opinion before I turn to the editorial page

for the pundits’ views. I don’t

want them to tell me how to

think until I’ve wrestled the

issue through to my own con-

clusion. Once I have, I’m open

to other reasoning. Resist the

temptation to let them do your

thinking for you.

Here’s an idea I firmly

believe in and act on. When you

read something that motivates

you, do something about it.Learn more about it. Join a

cause. Write a letter. You can

constantly vote on issues by

writing letters, particularly to

your congressman or state or

local representative.

To understand the news

better, you can also read news

magazines. Books help to fill in

the holes too. During the

Vietnam war, for example,

many people felt that the daily

news wasn’t entirely satisfac-

tory. The truth is, you could

have gotten many important

new facts from the books com-ing out at the time.

Pick A TV story And Follow It

Now that I’ve taught you

the basics of getting under the

skin of a newspaper, let news-papers get under your

skin.

Tonight, pick an important

story that interests you on theTV news. Dig into the story – in

your newspaper. Follow it, and

continue to follow it closely in

print. See if you don’t find your-

self with far more understand-

ing of the event.

And see if you don’t have a

far more sensible opinion as to

the “whys” and “wherefores”

of that event, even down to how

it will effect you – and maybe

even what should be done

about it.Keep up with the news the

way my colleagues and I do – on

TV and in the newspapers.

Learn to sift it for yourself, to

heft it, to value it, to question it,to ask for it all. You’ll be in bet-

ter control of your life and your

fortunes. And that’s the way it is.

— Walter Cronkite



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