MiracleA Daily

A studentguide tojournalismand thenewspaperbusiness

The Newspaper

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Glossary BoxA sidebar or a design featurecontained within fourperpendicular 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 newspaperdepartment responsible forselling and deliveringnewspapers

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

CopyWords in a newspaper

Copy deskThe 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 thatpresents 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 cartoon A 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 ServiceAn 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.

Byline The 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").

CLOUDY

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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2005

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INSIDE Friday, October 14, 2005Volume 24, Number 287, 7 Sections, 110 pages

7 702803 87040

AutoWeek / G1-8Beltway / A5Business / C9-14Classified / E1-5Comics / E6Commentary / A20Culture / A2Daybook / A10Editorials / A22Home Guide/ F1-44

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By Stephen DinanTHE WASHINGTON TIMES

Senate Majority Leader BillFrist said yesterday that theSenate will tackle border secu-rity and interior immigrationenforcement before turning tothe broader question of immi-gration reforms and a guest-worker program.

“It is a separate issue, but it’sone that people understand,” theTennessee Republican said ofborder security. “It’s an imme-

diate issue, it needs to be ad-dressed more aggressively, weneed to do that.”

Speaking with The Washing-ton Times by telephone after ahelicopter tour yesterday of 300miles of the U.S.-Mexico borderin Texas, Mr. Frist said he doesnot know whether an immigra-tion bill can pass this year be-cause of a heavy workload, but

the Senate will pass a bill beforeadjourning next year.

He said the next immigrationbill should address border se-curity and could cover interiorenforcement as well.

As majority leader, he con-trols the floor schedule of theSenate, and his decision willplease many conservatives, whoare calling for enforcement first.

But it puts him at odds withPresident Bush and immigra-tion rights advocates, who havesaid they want action on abroader guest-worker programthis year.

His position on tackling en-forcement first is similar to for-mer House Majority LeaderTom DeLay, who says the gov-ernment must prove to voters

that it can enforce immigrationlaws before Congress turns to aguest-worker plan.

“I think what I’m saying isprobably parallel to that,” Mr.Frist said. “The understandingof immigration issues will beaccelerated by the condition ofunderstanding what border se-curity is about, what internal

Frist to take on border bill firstImmigration reform will come later

By Tarron LivelyTHE WASHINGTON TIMES

D.C. officials this weekendwill expand their automatedtraffic-enforcement program,even though a record-low per-centage of motorists are speed-ing through the District.

Critics of the program at-tacked the expansion as the Dis-trict’s latest effort to reap morerevenue from traffic cameras,which have generated about$117 million in fines since theprogram began in 1999.

Two new photo-radar cam-eras will begin issuing tickets to-morrow. The cameras will snappictures of speeders in the 600block of New York AvenueNortheast and in the 3400 blockof Benning Road Northeast.

In addition, a new red-lightcamera will target traffic atFlorida and New York avenuesin Northeast tomorrow.

During the 30-day warningperiod, more than 25,000 vehi-cles were caught speeding bythe two radar cameras. The red-light camera caught 546 viola-tors.

According to the most recentstatistics from the MetropolitanPolice Department, 3 percent of

Districtexpandscameraprogram

By Bill GertzTHE WASHINGTON TIMES

The rise of militants to powerpositions in Iran is raising newworries about Iranian militaryforces’ deploying new weaponsthat threaten oil supplies or fu-ture long-range nuclear orchemical missile strikes.

Military specialists say theIslamist regime in Tehran hasnot invested heavily in the pastdecade in new tanks, armoredvehicles or warplanes, but in-stead focused defense spendingon “asymmetric” warfare capa-bilities.

These include Iran’s covertnuclear program and new Sha-hab-3 and older Scud missilesthat could deliver nuclear,chemical and biologicalweapons hundreds of milesaway.

Iran’s military power is underscrutiny after new Iranian Pres-ident Mahmoud Ahmadinejadrecently placed the country’snuclear arms program underthe control of the Islamic Revo-lutionary Guards Corps, whichare charged with protecting theregime.

Iranian forces also have pur-chased and built large coastalforces equipped with high-speed, anti-ship cruise missilesthat could be used to disruptstrategic oil supplies throughout

Iranianmilitantsin powerstir fearsBy Maya Alleruzzo

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

BAQOUBA, Iraq — JointIraqi and U.S. security forcesfoiled an attempt by terrorists toambush a truck delivering bal-lots to the nearby city of Muq-tadiya yesterday, one in a seriesof attacks ahead of tomorrow’svote on a permanent constitu-tion.

A decoy convoy — disguisedto look like it was carrying bal-

lots from the Iraqi ElectoralCommission and heavily armedwith Iraqi forces — drew firefrom terrorists hiding in a palmgrove outside of Baqouba atmidday.

Unknown to the enemy, threeordinary pickup trucks carry-ing the real ballots already weredelivering the precious cargo tothe city of Muqtadiya, an hour’s

drive away.Thirty Iraqi soldiers, accom-

panied by a reporter-photogra-pher for The Washington Times,were assigned to the dummyconvoy. It was an all-Iraqi oper-ation. No U.S. soldiers werepresent.

The Iraqis were ready for afight.

“By the name of Allah, the

most merciful,” said Iraqi armyLt. Hayder, who, like other Iraqisoldiers, goes only by one nameto protect his family from beingtargeted by terrorists.

“This mission is dangerous.Any civilian car moving be-tween our cars should be seen asa threat,” Lt. Hayder said beforethe mission got under way.

The attack began with the

bone-jarring explosion of aroadside bomb followed by abarrage of rocket-propelledgrenades and rifle fire.

Within seconds, Iraqi soldiersresponded with a wall of auto-matic-weapons fire. The terror-ists ran.

Iraqi ploy foils terrorist attack

Decoy draws fire as ballots reach their destination

By Charles HurtTHE WASHINGTON TIMES

The nomination of Harriet Miers to theSupreme Court has splintered President Bush’sbase and triggered a growing demand from hisown supporters to withdraw her nomination.

“What a stupid, stupid mistake,” said Mark W.Smith, a member of the conservative FederalistSociety who has actively supported Mr. Bush butwants to see the nomination withdrawn. “Youcannot fix this for 25 years.”

Conservatives have stuck with Mr. Bushthrough the bloodiest and gloomiest days of thewar in Iraq, held firm as administration officialsare investigated for revealing a CIA operative’sidentity and given him a pass on the galloping fed-eral spending. But blowing the historic opportu-

Conservatives callto withdraw Miers

By Jen HaberkornTHE WASHINGTON TIMES

For the wine industry, location is the toast of thetown.

The European Union and two wine tradegroups have created a new group to help educateAmerican consumers about where their bubblyand other wines come from.

The Center for Wine Origins, which opened inthe District last month, has started a three-yearcampaign targeting consumers, retailers and law-makers stressing the importance terrain and cli-mate have in giving wine grapes a specific taste.

“We want to educate American consumers onthe broader issue of the importance of location,”said Miranda Duncan, a spokeswoman for thecenter.

Grape expectationsdrive wine group

DOMINO’S LIFE — Model-turned-bounty hunter DominoHarvey, the subject of a filmopening today, is fondly recalledby her cousin, Washington writerJoshua Sinai. D1

Photographs by Maya Alleruzzo/The Washington Times

Firefight: Lt. Hayder (left) and Capt. Furat, both of the Iraqi army, fired machine guns at assailants who attacked their convoy in Baqouba, Iraq, yesterday.

Chopper cover: Iraqi army soldiers escorted a decoyconvoy of trucks containing no election ballots fromBaqouba. The real convoy arrived safely in Muqtadiya.

Taking aim: Capt. Furat fired at terrorists hiding in apalm grove who tried to ambush the decoy convoy.Thirty Iraqi soldiers participated in the operation.

Casualties: One Iraqi soldier and two Iraqi electionworkers were wounded in the attack on the decoyconvoy, but they were expected to recover.

see IRAN, page A16

see FRIST, page A14United Press InternationalA firsthand look: SenateMajority Leader Bill Frist took ahelicopter tour of the Texas-Mexico border yesterday.

see WINE, page A14

● Texas sheriff criticizes laxfederal border security. A11

see CAMERAS, page A14

see IRAQ, page A16

● President Bush praises Iraqiefforts to draft constitution. A4

Having assaultedthe public with“Man on Fire,”which unleashedDenzel Washing-ton as a body-guard at warwith the Mexi-can underworld,director TonyScott now perpe-trates, with

“Domino,” a distaff variation thatmight as well be called “BabyDoll Ablaze.”

Confined mostly to a depravedLos Angeles-Las Vegas corridor,this hellbent criminal spectaclepurports to memorialize the mis-spent life of a prodigal, DominoHarvey. The subject died of adrug overdose a few months ago

at age 35. Shewas awaiting trialon a federal nar-cotics rap.

Portrayed by a willowy,surly and pretty much en-gulfed-and-devoured KeiraKnightley, Domino was thedaughter of actor Laurence Har-

vey, who died in 1973 when hewas 45 and Domino was 4 — or 8,according to one of the minor ex-

ShowFRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2005 SECTION D

MoviesGary Arnold

�

� Music of Wonder / D2� Movie listings / D6

� TV listings / D5

� Creating ‘Wallace & Gromit’ / D4

� Tuning In / D2

� Moore the real ‘Winner’ / D4

Bad choices

Domino Harvey was my cousin. I did not know Domino — mythologizedas a dangerous and seductive thrill-seeking bounty hunter in the new film“Domino” (reviewed below) — whenshe was growing up in England. I firstcom-muni-

cated with her in1997, when shewas 28 years old.At the time, shelived in Los An-geles, and I lived (and still do) in the Washingtonarea.

Her father, the famous screen and stage starLaurence (Larry) Harvey, was my father’syounger brother (our original family name was

ReminiscenceJoshua Sinai

Keira Knightleyportrays DominoHarvey in “Domino.”

see DOMINO, page D3

Splash News

Laurence Harvey and Paulene Stone are pictured withtheir daughter Domino Harvey.

see COUSIN, page D3

see MIERS, page A16

NationDEATHS PROBED — TheLouisiana attorney general’soffice investigates deaths relatedto Hurricane Katrina at more than20 medical facilities, includingcharges of euthanasia at a NewOrleans hospital. A3

WorldDOZENS KILLED — Streetbattles between Islamic militantsand security forces kill dozens ofpeople in the southern Russiancity of Nalchik. A17

Foes see moveto raise cash

‘Stupid mistake’ slammed Terrain, climate stressed

Key Newspaper Terms

Your Daily Newspaper

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A DAILY

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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 andthen 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, claytablets, hieroglyphics – ortoday’s newspapers.

On the American continent,Benjamin Harris published thefirst newspaper in 1690. PublickOccurrences 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 dominantsource 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 rightfront cuspid today," according toCharlie Smith, her 14-year-oldbrother. "It was really bloody,"said Charlie.

Susie explained that she willput 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 ofyour 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 dayin your class. Your presentation has to be inwriting, accurate, well organized and visuallyappealing, 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 firstissue

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 newspapersand 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 ifthe 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 havingstrong confidence in newspapershave declined from 37% to 28%

since 2000, according to anannual Gallup survey on publicconfidence in major institutions.The confidence level fortelevision 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 reporterswork 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 andreport 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 MEDIAA journalist is a person just

like 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 ofview, 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 ofthe 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 newsjudgments.

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 newsjudgment. But if demonstratorsare not included because thephotographer or editor wants tohelp the candidate, this is badjournalism intended to manipu-late the reader.

What if the photographer in-cludes the protesters becausehe agrees with them, even ifthere 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.

BUSINESSCONGLOMERATESAND THE NEWS

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

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

This "New Journalism Order"is not confined to broadcast cor-porations. "The media are spi-raling toward a concentration ofownership 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 constantvigilance. Journalism in America is no different. "Freedom of the Press" is a

First Amendment right of American citizens. The responsibility of the press 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 MEDIADIFFER

Some say the evolution oftelevision and the Internet spellsthe 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 Internetis 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'sjournalism 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 ofColumbia University lists anddescribes eight factors thatdetermine what isnewsworthy in the tenthedition of his book, NewsReporting and Writing(McGraw Hill 2005).

1. Timeliness – events thatare immediate

2. Impact – events that arelikely to affect many people

3. Prominence – eventsinvolving well-known peopleor institutions

4. Proximity – eventsgeographically oremotionally close to people

5. Conflict – strife,antagonism, warfare,challenges

6. The Unusual – thingsthat are truly different,bizarre, strange, wondrous

7. Currency – an ideawhose time has come

8. Necessity – thejournalist has discoveredsomething he or she feels isnecessary to disclose

"These eight news valuesdo not exist in a vacuum,"Mencher writes. "Theirapplication depends onthose who are deciding whatis news, where the event andthe news medium is located,the tradition of thenewspaper or station, itsaudience and a host of otherfactors."

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 decideswhen to take pictures andwhat to include – whether toinclude a young supporteryawning, for instance, or tozoom in on the speaker’s face.Here, ethical questions canarise for the photographer andeditors.

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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 anewspaper. 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 amongnewspaper executives between theowners (shareholders), thepresident, the publisher, the generalmanager and the top editor. Theownership of a newspaper isultimately responsible for thecompany’s well-being.

When The Washington Starbegan losing money, the ownersdecided to close the doors. Whenthe Gannett Corporation launchedUSA Today in 1982 as a nationalnewspaper, this was a decision ofthe 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 ofreaders 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 chiefbased on trust and understanding.

EDITORIALMANAGEMENT

The editor in chief runs theeditorial 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.

A deputy 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.The editorial 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 tothe stories and improve thepaper’s look. A newspaper withoutthe work of outstanding photog-raphers looks 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 callthem 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 "bigpicture" - the information a storyconveys - 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 knowledgeableabout 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 ofStyle is used by some newspa-pers.

The Internet has made it easierto 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 newspaper company 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, COMPUTER

SERVICES, 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 islaunched and leads achange in the look ofnewspaperswith theirextensive useof color

1850 1900

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EDITORIALCARTOONS

The word "cartoon" might makeus think of the antics of DaffyDuck or the Road Runner, both ofwhich contain elements of satire;they use humor to make a seriouspoint. 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 betweenthe 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 Franklinhad 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 havelong 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.

Analyzingeditorialcartoons

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 whetheryou consider itfunny? Or does itget you steamed?

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iracleA 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 ofus 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 eachday. (Note: Actual times vary bynewspaper) These are the:

When we consider "A Day in the Life of ANewspaper," 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 editorsbrainstorm about coverage of the day's developments

4 p.m. news meeting chaired by the editor-in-chief and the managing editorwhere 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 sevenpage-one stories and accompanying photos are selected, immediatelyfollowed 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 thatcome 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 ofthe desk editors completes theplanning of their respective sec-tions, adding or eliminating sto-ries depending on the amount ofspace available to them. Theyare also working with the newsdesk on the layout and design ofthe 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. Theyroutinely 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 youjust 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 makepossible the daily miracle thatbest describes the process ofturning 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 ofthe front page of four different newspapers

from the same day. As you can see, the visuallook of newspapers can vary greatly.

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GRAPHIC DESIGN Newspapers use graphics

carefully. When used with newsarticles, they are included tomake information morecomprehensible. Charts andgraphs provide a quick and cleanway to visualize what a story istrying 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 betweenThe 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.

Design of a newspaper

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A day in the life of a newspaper

Let’s now take a look at what’s going on in the rest ofthe newspaper, and how that connects with the

activities of the newsroom. We’ll present this as arepresentative schedule.

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

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.

A day in the life of a newspaper

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 sentto 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 hourfly 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 deliveryvehicles.

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Photography There have been dramatic

changes in the way photographsare obtained and how they areused in a daily newspaper. Ahundred years ago, editors hiredartists to trace newsworthyphotographs by hand onto slabsof wood. These carvings, or"woodcuts," were accompanied

by "cutlines" – a few words ofexplanation. As photographydeveloped, the newspaperindustry began using halftonephotographs. All the shades ofgray in a picture were translatedinto tiny black dots of varyingsizes. The first newspaperphotograph appeared in the NewYork 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 cornerof 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 ofphotographs 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 graphictools used to communicate effectively with the reader.

Sports pages make dramatic use of action photographyand 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 pullthe reader into softer, more entertaining content.

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Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus"Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus," is the most frequently-quoted line from anewspaper editorial. Francis Church wrote the editorial in the New York Sun on

September 21, 1897, in response to a letter from an 8-year-old child.

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, ex-pressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numberedamong the friends of The Sun:

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says,"If you see it in The Sun, it’s so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticismof a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothingcan be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia,whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is amere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him,as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowl-edge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that

they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary wouldbe the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were noVirginia's. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tol-erable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. Theexternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might getyour papa to hire men to watch all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch SantaClaus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove?Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The mostreal things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did youever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they arenot there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and un-seeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is aveil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the unitedstrength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry,love romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beautyand glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing elsereal and abiding.

EDITORIALS ANDCOMMENTARY

Until the end of the 19thcentury, most newspaperpublishers made little effort toseparate news reporting fromopinion. Newspapers were oftenfounded for politically partisanreasons. As time went on,newspapers began to distinguishbetween objective news reportingand statements of opinions.

The American journalistic tra-dition is now to keep news andopinion separate and to clearlyalert the reader when opinionrather than news is being pre-sented.

News is to be reported objec-tively, accurately, and honestly.Opinions are placed in the edito-rial and commentary pages.Opinion columns can representmany different points of view.

Some newspapers believe that of-fering a diversity of opinions is agood idea, so that readers can begiven opposing views. Othernewspapers choose to have opin-ion columns predominantly re-flect their editorial positions.

There is a "Letters to the Edi-tor" section, which gives an op-portunity for informed readerswith strong opinions to expresstheir views, often in support of orin disagreement with a newspa-per’s editorial opinion, or an ar-ticle in the paper.

A newspaper’s editorial-pagestaff consists of the men andwomen who write the unsignededitorials that represent thenewspaper’s official position onissues. Editorial writers muststay informed through meetingwith sources in much the sameway as reporters. Their opinionsmust be well-informed, or no-body will read them.

Michael Gartner, a PulitzerPrize winning journalist for edi-

torial writing and former presi-dent of NBC News, lists his 4greatest editorial writers fromdifference eras. These are:

� Horace Greeley, who in-vented editorial writing

� Henry Watterson, whocoined the phrase during WorldWar I, "To Hell with the Haps-burgs and the Hophenzollerns"

� William Allen White, the"Sage of Emporia"

�Vermont Royster of the WallStreet Journal, awarded a Presi-dential Medal of Freedom byPresident Reagan.

They all had in common pas-sion, knowledge and great re-porting skills.

Gartner believes the most in-fluential editorial ever writtenwas by Horace Greeley criticiz-ing Lincoln for not freeing slaves.Lincoln responded that his objectwas to save the Union, not to abol-ish slavery. Yet six months later,Lincoln issued the EmancipationProclamation.

Information technologyat work

Every year, informationtechnology plays a more importantrole in our lives and in the ways thenewspaper industry operates.

Reporters and editors relyheavily on computers and theInternet for newsgathering,research and for transmission ofgraphics and written information.This trend started in the 1990s withlarger newspapers leading the way.Today, this reliance on informationtechnology has carried over to thenewspaper’s printing function andadministrative activities.

At many newspapers copy istransmitted from the newsroom tothe printing presses electronically.The printing plant uses computersto determine the amount of ink thatgets placed on the presses and theorder in which the newspaper’sdelivery trucks are loaded whenpapers come off the presses andare bundled.

Technology enables newspapersto have an international presence.

Newspapers also have their ownelectronic editions. Manynewspapers are available each dayon www.NewsStand.com as anexact electronic reproduction ofeach printed page of the paper. Youcan also read many newspapers bylogging on to their website.

Wire services No newspaper can afford to

have a reporter or photographer inevery city around the world, so theyrely on stringers and wire servicesor news agencies. In 1848,representatives of six New Yorknewspapers formed theAssociated Press (AP) to poolinternational news instead ofseparately bearing the financialcost of trying to "scoop" eachother. (In your mind’s eye, can youimagine competitive reporters inrowboats trying to be the first toget the news from ships arriving inports from Europe? What a sightthat must have been.)

In 1851, Paul Julius Reuterfounded a news agency thatbecame Reuters Wire Service. E.W.Scripps founded the United Pressin 1907. Following a merger in 1958with the International NewsService, founded by WilliamRandolph Hearst, the wire servicebecame United Press International(UPI).

The AP wire service sendsstories and pictures to more than15,000 news outlets in more than100 countries. A newspaper canalso obtain photographs via theInternet from Reuters, AgenceFrance-Presse and Xinhau wireservices.

Celebrated editorial writerPrice Day is another celebrated newspaper editorial writer. Previously a poet,

essayist, war correspondent in World War II and Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Daybecame editor in chief of the Baltimore Sun in the mid-1960s and wrote about issuesgreat and small. He responded to a reader’s Letter to the Editor:Dear Editor: I am married to a writer. What can I do?

UTTER DESPAIRDear Utter Despair: Your problem is essentially insoluble. Certain ameliorative measures may help.1. Keep his pencils sharpened, if he writes with pencils.2. If he writes on a typewriter, keep the typewriter sharpened. If he carves his stuffon large slabs of stone, keep his chisels sharpened.3. Don’t bother him about money. He lives on another plane.4. Do not argue with him about politics. 5. Do not argue with him about anything not politics.6. Do not ever, either in public or in private, correct your husband’s spoken grammar.7. Remember that writers are always working, whether they seem to be or not. Donot jar or jiggle his meditations8. If the writing your husband does happens to be for a newspaper, it is requiredthat he receive with his tea a copy of the morning paper, carefully folded to displaymost prominently his own work. The proper thing to say at this moment is, "That’sa wonderful piece of yours in the paper this morning." You need not have read thepiece.

Opinion matters

Newspaper styleNewspapers use a style book that sets the rules on how to present

the printed word. Punctuation, abbreviations, use of titles, spelling, capitalization, and other such issues are covered. Read the paragraph below. This is what you don’t want to read in a

newspaper. The contents and grammar are accurate. But notice themixed up style. How many inconsistencies can you find?

The President of the US lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Northwest,whereas the vice president’s official residence is on Mass. Avenue, NW.Mr. Bush and Cheney meet in the White House Wednesday mornings

at 7:00 a.m. and Thursdays at four o’clock pm. The President and theVice-president are the two top elected leaders in the United States.There are also 100 members of the Senate, 435 Members of Congress,and 9 justices of the US Supreme Court.

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Presses in the 18th and 19th centurieswere hand powered. Type was set byhand, 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 ofpages.

Today’s state-of-the-art presses are farmore 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 ofits 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 Room The newspaper pages with final copy,

headlines and graphics are “composed”on a computer by page designers workingon 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 graphpaper. 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 mighthave 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 themto the composing room. There the pagesare paired in the order in which they willbe printed. This is different from puttingthe pages in numerical order.

For example, take a look at the fourpages of a single sheet of a newspaper. Ifthe 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-weight

aluminum 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- makingmachine, 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 fedone-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 RoomWhen the plates are ready, pressmen

attach them to cylinders in the webpresses — so called because of the waythe 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 itspeeds through the press. This process oftransferring 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 precisionrequired 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.

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The DAILY

Miracle

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 everyweekday

� 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 waitto 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 ofthe morning.)

The pressmen make anychanges that have come fromthe 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.

CIRCULATION The Circulation Division is

responsible for all sales of thenewspaper. Circulation is criticalto 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; backissues; 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 ofthe newspaper meet each per-son’s individual needs.

Circulation is also responsiblefor handling all of the needs ofour customers through the Sub-scriber Services Department. Ifsubscribers 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." Thecomplete 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 willmake 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.

FINANCIALSERVICES

Managing money is a key partof any business. A newspaper’schief financial officer isresponsible for handling thecompany’s finances, typicallyreporting 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 everythingfrom 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 supportrole 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 yearto 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 AnglesTimes, 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 $3billion.

Distributing to the customer

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

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ADVERTISING The advertising sales staff

seeks to develop lastingrelationships with those whoadvertise in the newspaper.Working hard and emphasizingmutually beneficial relationshipsis part of the company’s culture.It’s also a good businesspractice, because advertisingplays 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 ofeach newspaper. This does notinclude the cost of salaries,computers, printing presses, orany 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 oncommissions, 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 ofadvertising: 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% ofall 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.

CLASSIFIEDADVERTISING

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

Classified ads appear in a spe-cially designated section andare 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 oftype). Both versions are classi-fied ads, along with legal no-tices and personal ads.

RETAILADVERTISING

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.

NATIONALADVERTISING

National advertising consistsof ads run by organizations witha national or regional presencethat generally advertise in manynewspapers and markets. Theadvertising may originate atcompany headquarters locatedhundreds of miles away, and thesame ad run in manypublications.

ADVOCACYADVERTISING

A sub-category of nationaladvertising is advocacyadvertising which, as the nameimplies, is advertising byorganizations or even individuals

who advocate a position or aretrying 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.

INTERNETADVERTISING

The Internet provides anothersource 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.

MARKETINGWhat do you suppose is the

average age of newspaperreaders?

If you are 17, triple your ageand 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 sametime 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 newspaperand, hopefully, to gain more reg-ular readers.

A strong brand identity helpsattract peoples’ attention.

Researching TheMarket

It’s important to know yourcustomer. Marketingdepartments at newspapers areresponsible for identifyinggeneral 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.

MarketingArt/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 printingand 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-1Abrams Main Battle Tank(or 320,000-400,000Quarter-Pounders –before cooking).

� Americannewspapers use morethan 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 havesome 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 SinclairLewis; 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.

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he DAILYM

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

That’s how 65% of us get100% of our news – from the 24-odd-minute TV news broad-cast each evening.

The problem – and I knowthe frustration of it firsthand –is that unless something reallyspecial happens, we in TV newshave to put severe time limitations on every story, eventhe most complicated and im-portant ones.

Get More ThanHeadlines

So what we bring you is pri-marily a front-page headlineservice. To get all you need toknow, you have to flesh out thoseheadlines with a complete

account of the news from a well edited and thorough news-paper.

Is it really necessary to getthe whole story? DorothyGreene Friendly put it this way:“What the American peopledon’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 the quotation hanging in EdwardR. Murrow’s CBS office. It was

from Thoreau: “It takes two tospeak the truth – one to speakand one to hear.”

Take A ThreeMinute Overview

Here’s how I tackle thepaper. For starters, I take athree-minute overview of thenews. No need to go to thesports section first, or the TVlistings. With my overviewyou’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 thingpage 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. Forone thing, headline type sizewill tell you how the paper’s editor ranks the stories on relative importance. A majorcrop failure in Russia shouldget larger type than an overturned truck of wheat onthe Interstate, for example.

Which Is The MainStory?

You’ll find the main or leadstory in the farthest upper-righthand column. Why? Tradition.Newspapers used to appear onnewsstands folded and dis-played with their top right-handquarter showing. They made upthe front page with the leadstory there to entice readers.

You’ll find the second mostimportant story at the top farleft, unless it’s related to thelead story. Do you have to readall the stories in the paper?Gosh, no. But you check themall. Maybe the one that appearsat first to be the least appealingwill be the one that will most effect your life.

News Is Informa-tion, Period

A good newspaper provide four basic ingredientsto help you wrap your mindaround 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 slantit. And it gives you both sides of

the story.Look out for a lot of

adjectives and adverbs. They don’t belong in an objectivenews story. They tend to colorand 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 astory’s importance and its facts.

As you read a story you canweigh its truthfulness by askingyourself, “Who said so?” Lookout for “facts” that come from unnamed sources, such as “ahighly placed government offi-cial.” This could top you offthat the story is not quite true,or that someone – usually in Washington – is sending up a “trial balloon” tosee if something that may hap-pen or be proposed gets a goodreception.

Another tip: check for “Corrections” items. A goodnewspaper will straighten outfalse or wrong information assoon as it discovers its error. Aless conscientious one will let itslide or bury it.

An Upside DownPyramid

Reporters write news stories in a special way calledthe “inverted pyramid” style.That means they start with theend, the climax of the story, withthe most important facts first,then building more details inorder of importance. This is unlike the telling or writing ofmost stories, where you usuallystart at the beginning and savethe climax for last. Knowingabout the newspaper’s “invertedpyramid” style will help you siftfacts.

A well-reported story willtell you “who”, “what,” “when,”“where,” and “how.” The bestnewspapers will go on to tellyou “why.” “Why” is often miss-ing. And that may be the key in-gredient.

Many important stories areflanked by “sidebars.” Theseare supporting stories that offer,not news, but the “why” – back-

ground and analysis – to helpyou understand and evaluate it.

Background offers helpfulfacts. Analysis frequently includes opinion. So it shouldbe – and usually is – carefully labeled as such. It’s generally

by-lined by an expert on thesubject who explains the causesof the news and its possible consequences to you. No goodnewspaper will mix interpreta-

tion with the “hard” news, ei-ther. Interpretation goes be-yond analysis and tells you notjust what will probably happen,but what ought to happen. Thisshould be clearly labeled, or atbest, reserved for the editorialpage or “op-ed” (opposite theeditorial) page.

Form Your OwnOpinion First

I form my own opinion be-

fore I turn to the editorial pagefor the pundits’ views. I don’twant them to tell me how tothink until I’ve wrestled theissue through to my own con-clusion. Once I have, I’m opento 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 youread something that motivatesyou, do something about it.Learn more about it. Join acause. Write a letter. You canconstantly vote on issues bywriting letters, particularly toyour congressman or state orlocal representative.

To understand the newsbetter, you can also read newsmagazines. Books help to fill inthe holes too. During the

Vietnam war, for example, many people felt that the dailynews wasn’t entirely satisfac-tory. The truth is, you couldhave gotten many importantnew facts from the books com-ing out at the time.

Pick A TV storyAnd Follow It

Now that I’ve taught youthe basics of getting under theskin of a newspaper, let news-papers get under your skin.

Tonight, pick an importantstory that interests you on theTV news. Dig into the story – inyour newspaper. Follow it, andcontinue to follow it closely inprint. See if you don’t find your-self with far more understand-ing of the event.

And see if you don’t have afar more sensible opinion as tothe “whys” and “wherefores”of that event, even down to howit will effect you – and maybeeven what should be done about it.

Keep up with the news theway my colleagues and I do – onTV and in the newspapers.Learn to sift it for yourself, toheft it, to value it, to question it,to ask for it all. You’ll be in bet-ter control of your life and yourfortunes. And that’s the way it is.— Walter Cronkite