Newspaper

A

3

Editors

Different types of editors contribute different aspects to news stories. An editor-in-chief (sometimes called an executive editor) directs the news staff and assumes ultimate responsibility for the newspaper’s news content. Managing editors handle the day-to-day operations of the news staff. News editors work closely with reporters to identify which events merit coverage in the paper and to determine the length of the stories. Most major dailies have several different news editors. For example, the newspaper may have different news editors for local, national, and international news, sports, business, and arts.

Copy editors check over reporters’ stories to ensure that they are understandable and free of errors. They may request more information from the reporter if parts of the story are unclear or cut back stories that are too long. The copy editors also write a short, catchy headline for the story. Headlines attract readers and summarize the story’s contents.

Page editors determine where stories will appear in the paper. They usually place stories covering particularly important or interesting events on the front page and usually relegate stories of interest to fewer people to the paper’s inner pages. Using specialized computer software, page editors finalize the placement of stories, headlines, and features on each page of the paper.

Editorial page and opinion editors write editorials. Unlike news stories, which strive to present the facts in an unbiased manner, newspaper editorials and comments reflect the opinions of the paper’s editorial team, publisher, or owner. Large papers have several editorial writers. They may also select additional writers to provide a balance of political and social views. The columns of many of the best-known editorial writers are syndicated to hundreds of newspapers around the country. The editorial pages also include a selection of letters from readers. Readers write letters to the editor to express their own opinions about newsworthy events or about the way stories were covered in previous editions of the newspaper.

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A

4

Graphic Artists and Photographers

A team of artists and photographers creates images to bring news stories to life. An art director works closely with newspaper editors to identify illustrations and photographs that will help readers conceptualize information contained in news stories. Graphic artists create any charts, maps, or diagrams that are needed. Staff photographers take pictures of local people and events featured in the news. When newspapers carry stories about events that happen in other cities, they may hire freelance photographers stationed in that city or pay a fee to use photographs from a wire service.

Artists that specialize in page layout and design also work on newspapers. An artist, or team of artists, works with page editors to arrange news stories, headlines, photographs, illustrations, and advertisements into pages. Page editors and designers strive to make newspaper pages both visually appealing and easy to understand.

B

Business Operations

The business division of the newspaper raises the money required to produce the paper and oversees printing and distribution. Advertising accounts for approximately 65 percent of American newspaper revenues, and income from circulation provides the remaining 35 percent. In Canada, advertising revenues cover up to 70 percent of an average newspaper’s operating budget. The biggest expense in the publication of large papers is newsprint, which amounts to about one-third of the total budget. Other major expenses include computers and machinery, salaries and benefits for newspaper employees, office space, equipment and supplies, utilities, and advertising.

B

1

Advertising

Advertisers spend more of their money advertising in newspapers than in any other medium. Newspapers offer two different types of advertisements: display ads and classified ads. Display ads share page space with news and features. They generally feature illustrations, photographs, or catchy phrases in large print to attract the attention of readers. Teams of specialists sell newspaper display ads to local and national businesses. Advertisers pay based on how much space their ad requires on the page. They can purchase full-page display ads, which fill an entire page of the newspaper, or fractions of pages. The price of an advertisement depends on the size of the newspaper’s circulation. A full-page display ad in the Wall Street Journal, for example, cost nearly $168,000 in 2001. Newspapers with smaller circulations charge less for display ad space because companies assume that fewer people will see their advertisements. A full-page display ad in a weekday edition of the Seattle Times, which had a circulation of about 226,000 in 2001, cost up to $24,000.

Classified advertisements are small notices with a variety of offerings, such as apartment rentals, job opportunities, and personal property for sale. Classified ads also include personal ads—short messages from individual people or groups. Personal ads may be directed at a single reader or at multiple readers. Unlike display ads, which appear in-line with news stories and features, classified ads appear in their own section, the classifieds. Many newspapers, especially small weeklies and special-interest papers, offer their readers some types of classified advertising free. Large newspapers charge by the word, line, or inch for classified advertising, and as with display ads, prices depend on circulation. In 2002 the national edition of the Wall Street Journal charged $588 for one inch of a column in their residential real estate classified section. The Seattle Times charged about $183 for the same amount of space for residential real estate classified advertising in their weekday edition.

B

2

Printing

After the page designer determines the final page layout on the computer, the pages are ready to be printed. Most newspapers use a printing technique called offset lithography, a method capable of producing more than 60,000 copies of a 65-page paper per hour (see Printing Techniques: Lithography).

The page editor sends electronic copies of the pages to a printing technician, who uses a special computer to create film negatives for each page. The technician transfers the page images to plastic or aluminum plates using a camera that shines ultra-violet light through the negative onto the plate. The light penetrates the clear parts of the negative, exposing only the printing portions of the plate. The technician then attaches the plate to one of the cylinders of a large printing press.

When in operation, a printing press rotates continuously, first coating the plate with water, which adheres to the nonprinting areas of the plate, then smearing the plate with ink that sticks only to the nonwatered portions of the plate. The cylinders rewater and reink the plate as they spin, pulling a long roll of newsprint, called a web, through the press as they do. When the plates roll over the newsprint, they transfer quick-drying ink to its surface. A typical modern newspaper printing press prints both sides of a newsprint web several pages wide. It also incorporates automatic cutters and folders and may include an inserting machine that arranges sections one inside the other.

Papers with multiple editions, such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, send computerized pages to two or more printing presses at a time, often in different geographical regions. These decentralized printing facilities enable newspapers to distribute copies to cities across the continent, and in some cases the world, at more or less the same time.

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