What happened during a few tense hours in the Poughkeepsie Journal newsroom one recent night helps answer the question a lot of readers ask about newspapers:
How do editors decide what goes on the front page?
In a nutshell, it goes like this: You pick the most important stories of the day, edit them and put them on the front page.
Thats about the way things stood a little before 10 p.m. on a Tuesday evening two weeks ago.
Most reporters had gone home, but Assistant City Editor John A. Torres, night shift reporter Nik Bonopartis and the crew of seven copy editors under News Editor Jim Konrad were still working. The newspaper was almost done and ready to be printed. It had been a busy, but fairly calm night.
The stories on the front page were about:
- A local man winning the $9 million lottery.
- Plans to put a worldwide rivers and estuaries research center along the Hudson.
- Another local man charged in a big fraud scam.
- Some baseball fans holding their wedding at Dutchess Stadium.
- The retirement of Sister Ann Elizabeth Bowne, 90, from her position as president of St. Francis Hospital.
It was a good mix of interesting local stories. But thats not the front page readers saw the next morning.
Just when the newsroom night staff thought their work was wrapping up, the biggest local story of the year began to unfold:
Bonopartis gets a tip that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had made its decision in the monumental controversy over whether to dredge part of the Hudson River of toxic PCBs, and whether to hold General Electric Co. responsible for some part of the cost.
With the help of Assistant City Editor Torres and News Editor Konrad, Bonopartis started tracking down people involved in the long-running dredging story, asking them to confirm the news about the EPA decision.
By 10:30 p.m. with press deadlines only a couple of hours away the story still isnt confirmed and the staff doesnt know if its a legitimate story yet. They check The New York Times Web site and find a story that describes the EPA decision as confirmed.
Of course, those working in the Journal newsroom know they cant just rely on another newspapers reporting; they have to keep trying for independent confirmation from reputable sources.
Meanwhile, a fast and furious makeover is in store for the Journals front page. Besides, other pages have to be changed and redesigned, since the other front-page stories are still important and have to go somewhere else.
Its a domino effect – newsroom style.
Stories prepared
While Bonopartis keeps working on the confirmation and gets reaction commentary, Torres is editing other stories that have been written earlier by other reporters in anticipation of the big EPA decision.
Meanwhile, Konrad calls Executive Editor Meg Downey at home to alert her to the news and discuss coverage plans, remaining in constant contact over the next few hours.
At about 11 p.m. Art Director Dean DiMarzo is also at home, just about to go to sleep, when he gets a call from the newsroom, asking him to design a map of the dredging areas. He does it on his home computer and sends it in by e-mail.
In the meantime, led by Konrad, copy editors who actually design the pages themselves are moving the fraud scam, lottery and St. Francis stories to the Mid-Hudson section. And the stories that were already on the sections first page have to be moved to inside the Mid-Hudson section. Everyone in the newsroom is working on the effort.
By now, the only original story still left on the front page is about the rivers institute, and it is moved to run along the bottom.
Finally, a story is sent over a computer news network by Gannett News Service confirming the EPA decision. The Journal is owned by Gannett Co., Inc., and many of the newspapers national and international stories come from this news wire service.
Working together
Torres gives that story a preliminary editing and adds local context. He also edits a local reaction story by Bonopartis. Torres then sends the stories to Assistant Sports Editor John Ferro, who volunteers to pitch in on the news copy desk on this busy night. These stories are edited twice more by copy editors before they are put on the press.
By 12:45, all the elements for the big story have been compiled stories, photos and the big headline, EPA: Dredge the river except the map showing where dredging is to take place. Unfortunately, after DiMarzo completed the graphic at home, the Internet held up transmission to the newsroom for about an hour.
Finally, the press gets rolling by 1:40 a.m. about 40 minutes late but the press operators make up most of the time so there is almost no delay in the distribution of the paper.
At 2:45 a.m., the dredging stories and the other news of the day are placed by copy editors on the Journal Web site, www.poughkeepsiejournal.com.
Under enormous deadline pressure, the biggest story of the year has gone from the rumor stage to a legitimate front-page story for Journal customers to read over breakfast.
The only story sacrificed from the original front page was the one about the wedding at Dutchess Stadium. That ran the next day.
