Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/9



N stories of newspaper life, "local color" calls for the colloquially technical expressions employed in a newspaper office. Since they are not many, but are constantly used, it may be well to state in a prefatory note their meanings, in order to avoid putting them between quotation marks whenever they occur.

In newspaper parlance, a reporter takes his "assignment" from the "city editor" and goes out to work up his " story." The "city editor" is the editor in charge of city news. An "assignment" is the subject a reporter is detailed to report upon. A "story" is almost any article in a newspaper except an editorial one. If the other papers fail to get a "story" which one has secured, it is called a "beat" or "exclusive." If the facts a story presents exist nowhere else, it is called a "fake." The manuscript of the story is called "copy," and is submitted to "copy-readers," whose function is to cut, correct, or sometimes re-write it. The place where the city editor and the reporters have their desks is called the "city room."

The editor-in-chief holds sway over the entire staff. He represents the owner of the newspaper, and directs its editorial policy. Next to him in importance is the managing editor, whose chief executive officers are the city editor, the night editor, and the night city editor. The Sunday editor is responsible for the special features of the Sunday edition, and under him are numerous sub-editors in charge of various departments.