Ask a Sun Editor
Email: 
Share: 
What Goes into a Typical Day's Paper?
November 9, 2007 - 12:00amEveryday The Sun asks the University, the local government, organizations and individuals to answer questions, including ones that people do not want to answer. Many times expectations for openness are not met. Thus, The Sun would like to extend an opportunity to our readers to ask us questions. E-mail askaneditor@cornellsun.com and have your question answered on cornellsun.com.
What goes into a typical day’s paper?
Every section works in a slightly different way, but generally the newsroom flows like this:
Previous days: Editors plan, assign and discuss stories with staff writers. News and Sports Editors tell the Photography Department what photos they will need.
Editors tell the advertising department how many stories they will run each day.
9 a.m.: business office opens for the day, taking advertisments and subscriptions until 5 p.m.
Early afternoon: an advertising staffer or manager compiles all of the ads scheduled to run that night and lays out the pages, keeping in mind how many stories the News, Sports and Arts sections are scheduled to run. Some pages — the first three News pages, the back two Sports pages and the Opinion pages — always have same layout.
Around 5 p.m.: one of the Sports Editors and one of the News Editors arrive at the office, check mail, e-mail and phone messages, speak to writers about that night’s stories and decide if any breaking stories need to be run.
Around 6 p.m.: one of the Arts Editors, the Associate Editor, one of the Design Editors, another News Editor and one of the Senior Photographers (or the Photo Editor) arrive at the office. Discussing what photos and graphics will go into the paper, the News and Sports Editors decide where in
the paper each story will go.
The Associate Editor has been editing and discussing columns with writers all day. She lays out the columns on the pages and assists the Editor in Chief with writing the editorial several days a week. News and Sports Editors edit stories as they come in from writers and pull wire stories (like the Associated Press) and photos from their respective websites.
Designers lay out individual pages, placing stories, photos and graphics. When the pages are finished being designed, the News and Sports Editors look over them and add headlines, captains, bylines and slugs.
Around 8 p.m.: Copy editors arrive to read over pages, looking for errors. After pages have been edited and proofed, they get sent to the production room. Stories about events that day begin to arrive and are edited.
Late evening: Production Assistants and the Production Manager, John Schroeder ’74, check that the pages contain the proper advertisements, place pages on the appropriate flat (a document containing pages that will be printed next to each other) and send them to the printer.
The Sun is printed in Corning, N.Y. by The Corning Leader.
1:30 a.m: All pages must be finished so they can be sent to the printer. Editors put stories and photographs on the website.
Thursday’s Daze supplement and Friday’s Eclipse supplement are organized by their respective editors throughout the week and finalized the night before publication.