HOW THE NEWS COMES—BY CABLE, TELEGRAPH, TELEPHONE, ETC.
The internal construction of a newspaper office is almost as complicated as that of a battleship—the duties of a modern editor as onerous as those of the man in the conning tower.
Let us take a hasty glance at the inside life of a journal.
A newspaper office is one of the few business establishments in which the human machinery is at work the whole twenty-four hours round. The business department, which requires the same staff as is needed in an insurance office or bank, starts its operations, as a rule, at nine in the morning, when the heads and clerks of the advertising, circulation, and other departments assemble.
With them arrives the first of the editorial staff. He, in the case of one newspaper with which I am acquainted, relieves the colleague who has been on duty since the previous midnight. It is his duty to open the editorial letters, to watch the news of the day, to see whether the particular journal on which he is engaged has gained or lost by comparison with its competitors in the collection of news, and to arrange matters generally for the coming of his co-workers, the foreign editor, and others, who assemble at eleven o'clock.
By this hour many of the reporters are already engaged in their multifarious engagements in various parts of the metropolis. The preparation of the next day's paper goes on steadily until five o'clock, when there is usually a brief conference of the editorial powers that be on the policy to be adopted on any particular event, and the methods required for obtaining any particular news or other features, and then, at six o'clock, the hard work of the day commences.