Some reporters are assigned to beats , or an area of coverage, such as the courts, city hall, education, business, medicine and so forth. Others are called general assignment reporters , which means they are on call for a variety of stories such as accidents, civic events and human-interest stories. Depending on a newspaper's needs during the daily news cycle, seasoned reporters easily shift between beat and general-assignment work. Although a few members of the media have been killed as a result of investigations into wrongdoing, newspaper work for the great majority of reporters is routine. They are our chroniclers of daily life, sorting, sifting and bringing a sense of order to a disorderly world.
All reporters are ultimately responsible to an editor .
Depending on its size, a newspaper may have numerous editors, beginning with an executive editor responsible for the news division. However, the best known and in some ways the most crucial editor is the city or metro editor. This is the editor that reporters work for directly. The city or metro editor assigns stories, enforces deadlines and is the first to see reporters' raw copy on the composition system or computer network. These editors are called gatekeepers , because they control much of what will and will not appear in the next day's paper.