Second Section
Hongkong Telegraph.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1940.
Magazine Features
NEWS END
она NEWSPAPER
Above
Centre, re
curd department where biographies,
ат stored mediate
pictures for
left-
sports departuunt.
}
table.
Newsroom
Right:
Sub-cditors'
"Below:
Centt C,
Prean roum
United
where messages come
from all
ОФСТ the
world; right, a made-
up page in the cum-
posing room,
THE
never take the place of and special writers printed word. The average nurderous
HE news end of a newspaper news can
is as remote from the gen- the
Kr
erally accepted rule of business newspaper is prepared to stand solid places, but ther as Jonah was from daylight by behind what
Le My
more of events from our reception by the getting out a newspaper. They all hallowed office boy, if he can be found. Offee have their allotted positions and they
are the boys, unlike the copy boys, have all in.
occupy functions
pecular habit of disappearing just The editor is the overseer.
It prints in good name--to provide reuders with facts about the time they are most urgent-
and figures cf everyday life when he got into the tummy of faith. A sip of the ungue l
radio broadcast ran never be TOM a whale.
It has its rules and its regulations, called-and there and very definite ones, tuo, but they few slips
not the same us might be national importance that have yet tu they all 81 into the general scheme. of They take their orders from the corrected. The controversy appiled to a branch of industry or to be
the rapidly and
ort
writers.
The
ly wanted. The newsroom, especial- news editor directs the staff of re- The editorial staff of the average ly in the hour before "dend line," porters; sub-editors, edit, aller and bristles with activity. It has a lot of atash, and are the bone of reporters, have been not a newspaper is made up of young men.
desks, most of them very untidy, a olde: men, and
The day's programme goes some- des broadcasts of inter- young women and
fot of people working at typewriters,
ta and must of them using the one thing like this
THE News Editor or chief of staff Anger touch system. One seems think faster with the index finger poised over the letter "a" and the writes down each evening before touch emphasises the mood, a vicious he goes off duty, a list of assign- poke denoting serious concentration. ments for the next day. Reporters The light, gentle tap indicates in- inilal the jobs against their name difference. Reporters with a lusty before they go home. hit are preferred.
txecute them BS accurately
a mercantile establishment. For the newspaper versus radio is a big one, higher-ups and simple reason that to-day does not "Is it true what they say
give an inkling what to-morrow inny
bring into news prominence.
course, there are exceptions.
Re-
porters know "when" certain things will take place, but they still have
to
They
on
daren't make mistakes
the unknown quantity, or qua have radio?" It may be, but there are a human frame
1
the 08
then lose.
A
page, with the joint ideal of a good thousands in every issue must be un "easy-to-read over carefully, corrected for news coverage and
'spelling, for grammar, for fact and for simple mechanical faults. FROM that point the work, 'for
By the time the bulk of the copy an afternoon paper, becomes hectic. is set, the blocks--they were photo- the 'argand Everything must be crammed into graphs an hour before are ready for
page. Swiftly, bour-and-a-half. Dead- the next the
blocks, the compositors arrange their of type, working carefully to lines wall for no-one. The paper masses must be on the streets at 10.30.
the editor's layout. The paper has been planned-but- But a story may be just a shade a dramatic cable, a big local news too long to fit, another may be, too story may scrap the whole front short, leave a hole in the page.
Around the compositor's stone us news from that page edition time approaches 'stands the page. The must be put elsewhere. The whole editor or one of the sub-editors.
They have learned to read type backwards by ordinary standards- and with a speed which puzzles
away throw and visitors, cut
to AL
read" effecti At 7. am the first cable man or Over in one corner a couple of rives in the office, the second follows will permit. They ut. News "breaks" worry about.
arrives before nine. lot of people who ring up their local sometines think they are persecuted. Juniors may be discussing baseball hin an hour later. The main staff no respect for newsmen They hap
but after they have been on the job or ping-pong. Juniors, the world
By this time the advertising de- pen at unexpected times and out-of- newspaper to find out.
partment has sent up a lay-out the-way places. If и newspaper IS newspaper work a game? If it while they begin to realise the first over, seems to take readily to spert twenty-five years are the hardest, gossip: the seniors usually know all misses a big story it can't apologise to is, it is a very serious one. There and thank their stars their legs will about horses, particularly those that showing the size of the paper for that day, the amount and position of iis readers. The business executive ann sit down and dictate a nice letter compense a conscientious newspaper- still propel them from place to place
Spotting the party of visitors, the expected advertising. nan receives is the knowledge that and their heads are capable of storing
Pictures which have been taken with an even chance of making out the work he is doing is worthwhile. additional knowledge. The limit of cub immediately assumes an air of
overseas case. Imagine a newspaper print- He earns what's in his pay envelope a newspaperman to learn is only importance. Our guide will probably overnight or sent from ing the following: "We regret we and usually thinks it should be more reached when the Great Architect, tell "Here are the breins of the agencies are then selected, raced to the processing department. They missed the story, but we didn't know The newspaper is an institution and writes. "38" at the end of his career. ac usually says that, and he's will be completed within an hour, anything about it and hope it won't it
News staffs are but human beings. it performs a necessary duty in the occur again." The reading pubile community in which it circulates. They may be netors and all the world probably right. The Juniors, think doesn't care why a story was missed, has many departments and many stage, but they seldom, miscut. so, and they may be right. And, no Readers know they didn't read it in men work in them, men who have one mistake-too bad. Two mis- matter how big you may be in ihn their favourite paper.
given their whole lives in the ac takes-why? Three mistakes good world outside, the moment you step The profession--and I feel justified cumulation of knowledge and ex-
In the last few minutes compost- in using that term of gathering, as-perience. It takes experienced men bye. Newspaper work is a serious inside a newsroom of a daily news- labour. There's no play acting, and paper you develop an inferiority know don't complex because you
The editor goes rapidly over all paper may have to be re-drafted a tors crowd round the type. The page. news fa printing the
tightened, a wet-paper proof is sembling and
Visitors Welcome
what it's all about.
the items which have drifted into few minutes before edition Ume..
Those are the moments when rapidly taken and the page is carried You begin to wonder how that the office. Men are sent out to get whatever Fourth Estate, or
WE have our "conducted tours" of
to the printing-presses, choose to call it, has had its rough
The task of getting out a news the newsroom and the mechanical little item you wrote about the meet local angles, or to follow-up a story newspapermen talk of throwing up
welcome them ing of the Camera Club aver found
cery's shop in a Kent villogo.over again for the second time. A spols along the roud of public ser- vice, but it has retained that frea- paper the news end of a newspaper departments-end
The editor, having then a good idea. But usually, the copy steadily mistake caught then can be corrucied
be dom
in particularly the British follows pretty much the same lines providing the tourists don't say too is way into print through the bive which seems to have more possibili- their jobs, of buying a small gro- The page-proof is rapidly read
of what news is likely to come in, accumulates in the composing room. in the page while the presses
amazing inotype ing adjusted Empire, that has given it a place of in all newspapers of the English long. If I were one of those tourists, of activity and the very apparent than the othe
Hive of Industry
usually discusses it with the seniors it is set on the influence in the affairs of the Com- speaking world. I do not mean that here's what I might be told and litter of the newsroom.
· monwealth of Nations. The 'news-the process is stereotyped, but the shown. Of course, we may not scom is in the newsroom the repor- of his staff, decides what shall be the machines, It emerges in "dur" of. But this day there is no Inst
be lead-alloy; each; bearing a line of minute correction. The presses be... papers of Hongkong ran, and do, general set-up of editorial depart the editor-in-chief, the editor, or the
news editor, telegraph lead story" what space shall support. menis is nearly identical. Naturally, editorial writer. They would prob. ters,
editors, sub-editors and the other given to subsidiary flems. The whole typer stuk gin to turn and there you have
EACH of those slugs there are your afternoon paper. command respect and
no power bas Dictatorial
place the staffs and special departments ably be in their "sanctume."
We shall try to follow the sequence Individuals carry on their work of paper is carefully laid out, page by In Hongkong Journalism. Radioed vary with the size of the newspaper,
one of high ideals. The Press, the to run a newspaper, that is, a good those engaged in it know why.
newspaper, and that's no theory or you "alleged" fact.
MIT
the
When the pace comes on
the
type
ary