Behind every newspaper stand hundreds of people whose job is to make sure you wake up in the morning and have something interesting to read • Here's a glimpse of how it looks from the inside
The Newspaper. You come across it in houses, on the streets, in shops and at intersections. We often take it for granted, yet it has been around our world for hundreds of years. But behind folded and wrapped paper that is distributed all over of the country at sunrise, there is a whole set of dedicated people whose job it is to bring you the most important stories written and presented in the most eye-catching and interesting manner while maintaining high standards of the Hebrew language. They print hundreds of thousands of copies while keeping up with a very short deadline. Yes, and all this while you sleep.
The editor is one of the important links in this daily success story - but to understand my work, you have to start from the beginning, from the time the press finishes printing the previous day's paper. Throughout the day, the newspaper's reporters are in every part of the country, each with his or her own responsibility: some cover specific fields such as the military, law, politics or economics. Others cover sections of the country and attend important events in their area.
The job of the reporters is to update the news coordinator of their daily schedule, and to get instructions from him about subjects that should be covered. The reporters and the news coordinator work around the clock. Most of the reporters don't come in to the newspaper office, but work in their coverage area, and transfer their articles to the system in real time. The articles are posted on the website and in the Israel Hayom newspaper. The photographers also work in a similar way, crisscrossing the country, and forwarding the pictures to the paper in coordination with the photography coordinator.
The newspaper's editor and his assistant are the policy makers and the main decision makers when it comes to the layout of the newspaper. They receive the information from the news coordinator, and decide, together with the editor-in-chief and his assistant, how to divide the contents among the pages of the newspaper. This is the point at which they usually decide which among all the topics should be on the front page, what should be on the inner pages, and what will not appear at all on news pages. There are three important criteria behind the decisions: new, important and interesting. A news event that happened a short time ago would be considered as new. A decision to strike the schools is considered to be important. The arrival in the country of a famous singer would be considered to be interesting. In many cases a good story combines several criteria.
At the evening meeting, the newspaper's editor-in-chief and his assistant pass their decisions on to the head of the news desk, and turn to columnists and commentators to enrich the pages with additional content. The task of the head of the news desk is to ensure that the task is carried out in a timely manner, while planning the layout of the newspaper pages, and assigning responsibility to the editors. Yes, we've gotten to me.
So, before I dive into the editing work itself, where I will also describe the work of the designers, proofreaders and producers at the desk - I must note that in preparing the newspaper, just as in the actual news, there are times when everything I described above is not valid at all. A major news event that takes place at eight in the evening, while working on the newspaper, will change the entire face of the paper - sometimes from one end to the other. And what if such an event happens a few minutes before the "deadline" the last minute before sending the page to print? Do they stop the presses from running when something important has happened? For this, see the next article.
