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Table of Contents

1. The City Room.—The city room is the place where a reporter presents himself for work the first day. It is impossible to give an exact description of this room, because no two editorial offices are ever alike. If the reporter has allied himself with a country weekly, he may find the city room and the business office in one, with the owner of the paper and himself as the sole dependence for village news. If he has obtained work on a small daily, he may find a diminutive office, perhaps twelve by fifteen feet, with the city editor the only other reporter. If he has been employed by a metropolitan journal, he will probably find one large room and several smaller adjoining offices, and an editorial force of twenty to thirty or forty helpers, depending upon the size of the paper.

2. Metropolitan Papers.—The metropolitan paper, of course, is the most complex in organization, and is therefore the one for a beginner to examine. The chances are two to one that the cub will have to begin on a so-called country daily, but if he knows the organization of a large paper, he will experience little trouble in learning the less complicated system of a small one. For this reason the reader is given in Part I an explanation of the organization of a representative metropolitan newspaper.

3. All Papers Different.—The reader is cautioned, however, against taking this exposition as an explanation of anything more than a typical newspaper. The details of organization of various papers will be found to differ somewhat. The number of editors and their precise duties will vary. One journal will be a morning, another an afternoon, paper; a third will be a twenty-four-hour daily, employing a double shift of men and having one city editor with day and night assistants. One paper will have a universal copy desk with a single copy editor handling all departments. Another will have, instead of a state editor, a section editor, a man who handles all special matter not carried by the press service from possibly half a dozen states. Thus the organizations vary in certain minor details, sometimes materially so; but, on the whole, one general system will prevail. And it is to give the student an understanding of a typical newspaper plant that Part I is written.