The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1901-07-31
Routine an Item Must Go Through
Before It Reaches the Public.
JESSE MAY.

Chicago TTibUne.)
When one reads an item of telegraph
news in the morning paper telling of
some happening of Importance, he little
/ realizes the number of hands that bit
Of information has passed through be-
! fore the whole paper is delivered at his
door. The fact that the news is there
! is all the average reader cares for, and
4 that fully forty individuals shared in
the work of placing it before him per-
haps never entered his head
It is true, nevertheless, that forty
persons must each give their little tap
to that Item be il only ten lines in
length, before the reader encounters it,
and this number leaves out altogether
the actors in the event ChrOnicled or
the bearers of the information nr- viOus
to its reaching the cOTrespoudeut
A review Of the route taken by one
/ story as the news item IS termed,
between the happening and The time
the Tribune subscriber reads il may
prove interesting.
Say an event worth printing in the
/ Tribune develops in some city in Wis
consin. The correspondent Of the pa
/ per gathers his facts and then que
rieS' the OfIice-that is, in the fewest
words possible he tells the features of
the story and gives mis- estimate of the
y
to tell the story. The query is turned
in at the telegraph office desk, sent to
the operating room and carried to the
man working the Chicago wire. This
man calls up the Chicago telegraph Of
flee and his wire It attached to one en-
tering the telegraph room in the TTi-
bune office. Then the message is trans
mItted, an operator in the Office copy
/ ing it with a typewriter. The tele-
graph room boy carries the typeWTit-
ten message to the telegraph editors
boy and he lays it before the editor
Quick Judgment on the value of the
story is necessary on the part OF the
telegraph editor, who must take into
consideration the amount of space he
Is allowed to fill in the paper. He writes
brief message, saying: send $50
words and this through the hands of
clerks in the Wisconsin city's Office
reaches the correspondent, who pro-
ceeds to relate his item in the number
of words ordered
Now the item has assumed shape
and begins its direct trip to the reader.
Again it passes through the hands Of
the two operators and the two office
boys and reaches the telegraph editor,
who, after glancing over the story to
see that il is what was Gueried. marks
the style Of head it is to carry and
passes it to one Of his cOpyreaders. The
COpyTeader dresses up the story and
sees that it is told properly Ere
quently this means rewriting the entire
item, although sometimes the change
of d word here and there is all that is
necessary. He then writes the head,
each line of which has a limit on the
number Of letters it will contain, and
which must place before the reader at
q glance the interesting features of the
news. Then the story is copy, and it
goes on the hook for the composing
room.
The copy boy is the next to have a
hand in the work. He carries the item
to the night editor, who, if the head
and story are satisfactory. o. ks the
copy and it goes to the composing
room. Here the copy cutter takes
hand. With a long scissors he cuts the
head and reading matter apart, num-
berS each so they will turn up together,
and one piece is given to the linotype
operator and the head to the man at
the head letter machine.
When the two printers have put the
story and the head into lead it is de-
posted on a galley, a shallow box,
which allows the face of the type to
project above its top. The galley boy
takes this box, puts in side stick to
hold the linotype lines firmly in place,
anu the 6dlAET - AdlA DEAOlE LlAE DtOUl
press manipulation. On a long strip of
paper a proof is printed and another
boy carries this slip to the prOOfroonl,
where the man at the desk finds the
copy brought him by another boy, and
folds the various parts together.
Then one of the proofreaders and his
assistant have an inning, comparing
the proof with the original to see that
names and dates are correct, and also
marking for typographical errors.
@ 9 o
Back to the composing room goes the
marked proof. which is turned over to
the ring man" who resets each line in
which an error appears. Another man
then takes these new lines and the gal
ley OF type and makes the changes.
with perhaps two more landings the
type reaches the makeup man, who has
the form" or steel frame which is to
develop into one page Of the Tribune
The item is placed in the page where
1t best fits, and when the page is filed
'Justifying," pulling out leads or put
ting in some between the items until
each column is of similar length. The
form then is locked up''-that is. side
pieces screwed up against il to prevent
the type lines from twisting out of
place, and the form with the stand
upon which it lies is rolled back to the
stereOtypeTs.
Here again considerable work is to
be done. The whole face Of the form
IS gone over carefully to correct any
unevenness in the type. and a thick
sheet of moist pulpy paper is laid over
the entire page. Wadding is placed on
top OF this and the form passed under
q roller which presses the soft paper
down into all the depressions around
the faces Of the type letters. Then the
form goes to the steam table, where il
IS cooked, that Is. the pulpy paper dried
until 1t is Hrzli and hard, making an
exact duplicate Of one page of the pa
pre-, except that instead of ink letters