Peggy investigates the science behind newspaper production. When we step outside each morning to pick up our newspaper, most of us don't consider the technology needed to produce it. From the moment a reporter starts on a story to the point when you read the headlines, anywhere from several dozen to several hundred people have applied the latest technology to put the news in your hands. Gone are typewriters and mechanical typesetting machines. Modern newspaper staffs depend on computers, digital imaging, satellite technology, and even robots to get the job done.
Reporters write their stories on computerterminals tied into a central computer network.
From it, editors can access the stories, edit them, and electronically format them for layout on a page. At large national papers and wire services, a story may be digitized and sent via satellite to another location for typesetting. Each color separation consists of a series of closely spaced dots of varying sizes. The larger the dot, the more dense that color ink will appear on the final printing. This information goes into a computer and is later retrieved to produce proofs and negatives.