Newspaper Writing and Editing

by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

Newspaper publishing consists of three distinct parts with three entirely different classes of workers: (1) the business management, (2) the mechanical force, (3) the editorial staff.

The Business Management. The business organization, as its name implies, has charge of the commercial side of newspaper publishing. From the financial point of view the purpose of the newspaper is to make enough money to maintain the paper and to pay dividends to the stockholders. The object of the business department is to sell as much advertising space and as many copies of each issue as it possibly can; and, on the other hand, to pay out for wages and expenses only so much as is necessary to keep the paper up to a standard that will insure a good circulation and enough advertising. In short, a newspaper company, regarded purely in the light of a business enterprise, is not essentially different from any manufacturing company that produces and sells a commodity.

The business department is organized with a business manager at its head, who has complete control of the finances of the paper, subject, of course, to the owner or board of directors of the company. Under him are: (1) the circulation manager, (2) the advertising manager, (3) the cashier. The circulation manager directs the work of subscription canvassers, the drivers and the assistants on the paper’s distributing wagons, the mailing clerks and helpers, and a force of office clerks and bookkeepers. In the advertising department are the advertising solicitors and the office clerks and bookkeepers. The cashier has assistants and a bookkeeper to aid him. The business office of the newspaper is frequently referred to as the “counting room.”

The Mechanical Force. The mechanical side of newspaper making is divided into three relatively distinct departments: (1) the composing room, where, under the direction of a foreman and a copy-cutter, the type is set up by compositors or is cast in linotype or monotype machines by operators, and where the type is arranged by make-up men in pages as it is to appear in print; (2) the stereotyping room, where these pages of type are used to make molds into which lead plates are cast by stereotypers under the direction of the foreman of the room; (3) the press-room, where the papers are printed, in charge of a superintendent with pressmen and machinists as his assistants. Attached to the composing room is the proof-reading department with a head proof-reader, several assistant readers, and as many copy-holders who read aloud the copy for the proof which is to be corrected.

The Editorial Staff. The writing and editing of a newspaper, with which this book is particularly concerned, is divided into two distinct parts: (1) the gathering, the writing, and the editing of the news; and (2) the interpreting of the news. The two branches are different in the kind of work involved, and are relatively independent in the organization of the office. To present clear, concise, accurate, timely, and interesting reports, or “stories” as they are called, of everything that is going on in the world of sufficient importance to be of interest to any considerable number of readers, is the aim of the news department. The more quickly, the more attractively, the more completely the news can be presented, the greater is considered the success of the newspaper from the point of view of the news staff. The editorials of a newspaper attempt to interpret and to explain the news, or to make the news the basis of argument upon issues growing out of questions of the day. The attitude taken by a newspaper on the questions at issue is determined by what is known as its “editorial policy.”

The editor-in-chief, under whom are one or more editorial writers, has charge of the editorial columns and determines the editorial policy, subject to whatever control of this policy the owner or directors desire to exercise. The editorial writers and the editor-in-chief confer daily to consider the attitude that the paper shall take in its editorials and to divide the work of writing them. Some of the editorials are written by men in other professions who are not on the regular staff, and often by such members of the news staff as the financial editor or the dramatic critic. Most of the editorials, however, are the work of the editorial writers.

The news staff is in charge of the managing editor, who is usually responsible directly to the owner or the directors. As aids the managing editor has the assistant managing editor, and the news editor, or the night editor, to take charge of “making up” the newspaper The gathering and writing of local news is in charge of the city editor and the night city editor, with an assistant city editor. The news of the state, the nation, and the world, as it comes by mail, telegraph, and telephone, is under the control of the telegraph editor. The city editor directs the reporters; the telegraph editor the correspondents. Particular kinds of news are collected and edited by persons in especially designated positions, such as the sporting editor, the society editor, the financial and market editor, the dramatic and musical editor, the real estate editor, the railroad editor, the marine editor, the labor editor, all of whom usually work under the direction of the managing editor. The special magazine sections of the Saturday or the Sunday issues are in charge of the magazine, or Sunday, editor. An exchange editor goes over all the newspapers received in exchange to clip and edit material worth reprinting. Cartoonists, artists, and photographers supply the materials for newspaper illustrations, or “cuts,” as they are called. A librarian has charge of the reference books and newspaper files, as well as of the collection of biographical sketches and portraits of prominent people known as the “morgue.”

All of the manuscript, or “copy,” is edited and is supplied with headlines at the copy desk in charge of a head copy-reader with a number of copy-readers as assistants. “Rewrite men” are often employed to take the facts of a story from another newspaper and rewrite them, or to receive material over the telephone from reporters and correspondents and write it up for publication. Unsatisfactory work of a reporter may be turned over to a rewrite man to be put in the desired form, for rewrite men must be able to take the raw material of the news furnished by others and turn it into a well-written news story.

Getting News into Print. The relation of all these departments to one another is best shown by following through the process by which a piece of news gets into print. The telegraph editor on a newspaper in the capital city of the state, for example, gets from an office telegraph operator, a typewritten dispatch signed by the paper’s correspondent in a city of a neighboring state to the effect that the attorney-general has dropped dead in the lobby of a hotel. The telegraph editor at once notifies the city editor so that he may assign reporters to get the local phases of the piece of news, or “to cover the local end of the story,” as the newspaper workers say. One reporter is sent to interview the members of the late attorney-general’s family; another is dispatched to the governor’s office for an interview with the governor on the deceased official; a third is asked to look up the statute concerning such an unexpected vacancy in the office; a fourth is assigned to find out the probable successor to the position.

After informing the city editor and the managing editor, the telegraph editor at once turns over the dispatch to the head copy-reader to have it edited and to have a headline written. Meanwhile one of the rewrite men is delegated to get a biographical sketch of the attorney-general from the office “morgue” and to write an obituary. The artist looks up the half-tone engraving, or “cut,” of the official in the “morgue” and selects an appropriate border or “frame” in which to put it. The editor-in-chief is informed of the attorney-general’s death so that he may make appropriate editorial comment. Meanwhile the telegraph editor has sent a telegram to the correspondent who furnished the first news of the event instructing him to “wire” five hundred words more giving all the particulars.