Page:Newspaper writing and editing.djvu/48

 City News Associations. In large cities, like New York and Chicago, the gathering of all the official or routine news is done by a central news association which furnishes each paper that belongs to the association or which pays for its services, with a mimeographed copy of every news story that its reporters secure in covering all the usual runs. By this method each paper is saved the expense of providing for the scores of runs necessary in a large city in order to cover adequately all the news sources each day. When the city editor gets a news bulletin or a complete story from the news association, he can have it rewritten or can send out one of his reporters if he desires to have the event more fully covered. Such a system of local news gathering makes possible a staff of reporters relatively small as compared with the size of the city. Reporters employed by the city news association work under conditions practically the same as those in a newspaper office. Inasmuch as the stories that a news association reporter writes are edited in at least half a dozen newspaper offices by different editors and copy-readers, the reporter has the advantage of seeing how various papers treat the same news story.

Assignments. In organizing news gathering, the city editor and his assistants keep a "future" book or file with a page or compartment for each day in the year. Into this are placed, under the appropriate day, all notes, clippings, and suggestions regarding future news possibilities. If, for example, on December 10, the state legislature passes a law in regard to the size of berry boxes, to take effect on March 1 of the following year, the city editor puts a clipping of the dispatch from the state capital telling of this action, or a note recording the fact, into the compartment or page labeled February 25, so that a week before March 1, he may assign