In order to have texts to put pen to paper in a newspaper, there should be news. News can be first-hand or second hand. First-hand stories are those which were personally or exclusively covered by the reporter or the newspaper. Second-hand stories are those which were relayed from sources reliable and allegedly reliable. Second-hand stories may come from eyewitnesses or announcements from other organizations (police report, press conference, etc.).
Reporters would find it hard to cover immediate stories outside the country unless overseas correspondents are established there. This calls for the newspaper to get news from agencies like Associated Press (AP), Agence France Press (AFP), Philippines News Service (PNS), Reuters (BNA: British News Agency) or United Press International (UPI). These organizations automatically send information and news through electronic automatic text wiring to those newspaper companies subscribed to their service.
From the sources, the city editor, who writes the printer’s direction or guidelines and instructions to the compositor on the kinds of headlines to be used, gets his hand on the copy.
The copyreader or deskman edits the copy and writes the headlines and guidelines on a separate sheet of paper. The copy is brought to the composing room where the linotype man sets the story.
The lines of types or slugs are assembled by the compositor in a long metal tray called galley. When the galley is full, a few impressions or proofs called galley proofs are taken on a small proof press.
A proofreader carefully study and mark the errors (typographical, grammatical, logical, etc.) that may have been made. The proofreader uses a language that the compositor understands and guided by marked proofs, the compositor corrects the type.
After this, another galley proof may be pulled and sent to the writer or editor for any further changes. Now the type is arranged into pages. The compositor transfers the proper number of lines to make up a page proof from the galley to a hollow rectangular frame called chase. The proofreader edits the page using proofreading symbols. Then a lock up man locks the pages of types securely in the chase with wooden or metal blocks called furniture and with metal wedges called quoins. Printing begins.
In letterpress printing, the impression is transferred from the flat chase to the paper. Cylinder press is how the type of printing press used is called. The printing form is held in a flat bed. The bed itself moves forward under a turning impression cylinder to print a sheet of paper. After then, it moves back to get a fresh coat of ink.
Meanwhile, the rotating impression cylinder discharges the printed sheets and picks up a blank paper. Individual sheets pass through the press, not continuous rolls.
If many copies are to be made at a very fast rate, the rotary press is used. Here, printing is done by leaving the print impression from a printing plate formed into a complete cylinder of metal to paper. The rotary may have one or more sets of rotating cylinders.
The plate cylinder holds the electrotype or stereotypes plates while the impression cylinder provides the pressure. The paper passes between the two and may be in the form of sheets or rolls. The rotary press can produce 30000 or more impressions in an hour with a continuous rolls passing through it. The cylinders are so arranged that they may print on both sides of the paper.
A new method of printing is called offset printing which has become popular. It has several advantages over the rotary press and the cylinder press especially on printing with colors. This printing is made through a process in which the inked impression is first made on a rubber-covered roller then transferred to the paper.
Printing of the first edition must start at a fixed time called deadline so that the papers may be printed and dispatched in time to reach various destinations in the morning.
Except for big schools that print many thousand copies every issue, and should therefore, use the rotary or the offset printing, the printing of papers is less complicated and they only resort to letterpress printing.
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