Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related FFQ: Newspaper Questions

Yeah, I know, shocking. I have a FFQ, which implies that I'm writing. Blame it on being sick and having nothing else to do.

Okay
1. Exactly how many editions per day does the Daily Planet put out? I haven't woken up ridiculously early for L&C in a while, but I seem to remember words like 'afternoon' or 'morning' edition being thrown in a lot.

2. Hypothetically speaking <g>, let's say that a big enough story broke not too long after the paper went to bed. I'm going to have Perry stop the...making of the morning edition to quickly change the front page. a) Can an editor really do this? and b) If he can, is there some newspaper lingo so I don't completely butcher his dialogue?

Edit: (3 years later) What story was I writing when I asked this question?! I even looked myself up on the Archive and can't place it.

I can't really tell you how many editions the Daily Planet has. I know they sometimes mention the morning or evening edition, which always sounded weird to me. I do know how it works in the Netherlands and how the New York Times handles it, so I'll explain about that. Maybe that will help you.

The NYT only has one edition, that comes out in the morning. It is a big newspaper and it takes a lot of time to get it out. Not too mention the costs for it. And most readers don't have time to read a paper twice a day. In the evenings, they turn on the televion for the news. And it happens quite often that people have read about events on the internet. So the most logical thing to do is to get out a morning paper. That way people can read it during breakfast and on their way to work.

The only advantage an evening newspaper has, is that they can put more information on subjects in the paper. Usually, those papers contain many background stories. In my experience, that gets boring. After a few of those you are simply not interested in it any more. So you come back to the morning paper, which has and the news and the background stories.

Over here there are still a few evening newspapers, but most have switched to the morning a few years ago. Evening papers mostly have a religious background, which makes them come out in the late afternoon. But even then, all of them have only a morning edition on Saturday.

For the question of stopping the presses, that doesn't usually happen. Only if something really big just happened, like the war in Iraq. It takes a lot of time to stop the presses, get the new paper out, etc. The reporters and other staff have to work very fast, and mostly not many people are still present after the deadline. And the people with subscriptions would like to get their newspaper on time.

These days I expect that if a big story breaks and it can't go to the front page anymore, you'll find it on the internet.

I have a feeling I'm not making much sense anymore, or if this information you are looking for. But I hope it helps you and other writers.

Saskia

The L.A. Times, from what I've seen, does it a bit differently.

If you subscribe, you get the regular edition. But at newsstands I've seen Early Edition (night before), and Final Edition (morning). I don't know anything about when these are actually printed.

But I have read that these days they NEVER stop the presses. The costs are astronomical -- NO story is going to be worth it.

of note is the fact that the paper is called the daily planet, which would indicate that it's normally one issue per day. if there is a regualarly published evening edition, i'd expect that it would have relatively minor changes (unless something huge hit).

if you want instant news, you go to the TV. the papers will carry the story the following day.

that, btw, is why i've often been surprised by the number of times the DP scooped everyone, including the news networks. the only way to do that is to get an exclusive, which, i guess, would require the exceptional investigative talent of a certain pair of reporters...

Paul

Ahh, thanks everybody. Yeah, it's just a minor detail, but since a big story is breaking right now in my fic, I won't stop the presses, but I do think an afternoon edition of the DP is worthwhile, considering...

I believe that big newspapers used to have two editions a day, morning and evening -- and there were usually at least two papers competing in the same market, too.

But with television news and now the 'net, newspapers really aren't what they used to be.

However, in L&C world, newspapers are looking pretty healthy, so you could do it whichever way suited your story better

PJ

Just thought I'd add my two cents ...

Before the advent of television news, most papers did have a morning and afternoon edition - other than the radio, it was the only way to get information out to people.

Keep in mind that the Superman comic started in the late-1930s - the peak of the two daily editions. Even though most papers had slimmed down to a single edition by the 1990s, because the second edition was no longer necessary, I always assumed Lois and Clark kept in the reference to an afternoon edition as a nod to the comic strip.

As far as breaking headlines - if it was big enough, a paper would run a special section to add to the paper currently at press or create a special edition. Most times, however, they will run with what they have at press time. I'm not positive, but I believe that some U.S. papers put out a special edition on Sept. 11, 2001 - I wish I could be of more help there, but that entire day is just a fog to me.

Hope that helps.

Hi everyone:

I'll jump into this topic because I've a piggyback question. First, about editions. Some metropolitan newspapers serve the entire state. They have editions printed at different times that are shipped to outlying areas which will have a section of news and features for that localized area. These editions are usually printed early so they can be transported in time for morning or eveing availablity. The features are usually identical with the metropolitan edition, but the front page stuff is usually yesterday's news. Metropolitan newspapers will aso print different editions for different locations within the metropolitan area. So in that sense, they could be said to have more than one edition each day. Back in the 'olden days', if a really sensational story broke, big city newspapers would set a new front page with a banner headline and related stories and distribute it with inserts from the previous print run. They don't do that any more because it's much too expensive.

Now for my question. What would the deadline be for the Planet assuming it was a morning paper? That is, at what time would the paper have to be sent to the print room? Anybody have any idea on this? Thanks.

Jude

Okay, jumping in with my two cents worth. (And anyone who knows me knows that asking about Journalism is one way to get me talking for hours. I'll try to keep this brief.)

1) Editions. As most people have said, there used to be multiple editions of papers, but the rising costs of publication and the competition or broadcast and web-based news sources have virtually eliminated them. There are still multiple editions based on where they are published, but they all come out in the morning. The deadlines are just earlier depending on where the paper has to go. For example, The Daily Planet would be a national paper (ie a paper you could easily purchase anywhere in the country). Therefore the version that would be sent to distant cities or even the outlying suburbs would need to be completed earlier than the final version, which would be available in the metro area. These are the Early and Final versions.

2) Editors do not ever stop the presses. I can't think of ANY reason we would do this. It's SO expensive. It would kill our budgets and our business managers would have our heads. Contrary to what many outsiders believe, the Editor in Chief is NOT the final say at the paper. Newspapers are businesses run by publishers and
financial officers. When there are major, earth-shattering events (ie 9-11) newspaper will produce a special edition as fast as possible. If it's not worthy of a special edition (and the vast majority aren't) it goes in the web version which is updated continuously throughout the day.

3) Deadlines vary from paper to paper. When papers don't make deadline, they lose a lot of money, so big papers with big budgets can afford to fudge deadlines every once in awhile, but no one likes to do it on a regular basis. Also, there are multiple deadlines. I'm guessing the one you are interested in is the writer's deadline (as opposed to the section editors deadline or the rim editor's deadline etc). The standard deadline is either 5pm or 6pm. But there are, of course, late stories every night. In those cases, the generally accepted rule is ASAP. But every paper also has a cut off as well. For many papers that 10pm. Also, sometimes they can hold a certain page until the last minute for sports scores, results of late votes, etc. Often this is information that makes it into the metro edition, but not the Early editions. The absolute, no excuses deadline is usually between 11-12 pm, but this would really have to be life or death to wait that long. And usually at that point the stories are done, they are just waiting for a vote count or score. (And, as a side note, many politicians know their local papers' deadlines and will sometimes specifically stall until after said deadline just to screw up the reporters. This is NOT a way to get popular quickly, but it definitely happens.) As for late breaking news, when the paper is already designed it throws a real kink in the system - no one is happy when news breaks at 9pm. Generally we will pull and bump stories to make it fit. (ie kill the story on page five, move a page three story to five, move a page one story to three, and put the breaking news in it's spot on one.) If nothing can be killed, we will squeeze in an extra story on front. Design hates this because it messes up their pretty page, and writers REALLY hate it because all the other stories have to be cut to make room for that story. But what has to be done, has to be done.

Okay, stepping down off my soap box now. I'm sure that's far more information than anyone wanted or needed. But newspapers are my passion.

Annie (who's actually really nervous because she's stepping up from her section editor role to be editor in chief while the normal EIC is out of town for two months)

Actually, Annie, that was fascinating! Thanks.

About morning and evening newspaper editions:

Hi! First posting on Lois&Clark, so, greetings to everyone and congratulations on such a nice message board.

The reason I'm posting is because I found the discussion on morning and newspapers' multiple editions fascinating.

I was wondering how did they tell them apart back in the days when there were two editions. I know that printing "morning", "afternoon" or "evening" alongside the newspaper's name would be the obvious answer, but I did some research and found that it wasn't that obvious at all. I took an important newspaper of the 40's (actually from the '10s to the 50's!) the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.

One edition had one star in the upper right front page and the letters XB in the middle of the first division line. The other had three stars instead of one and the letters XJK instead of XB.

I don't know what the letters mean, but making a numerical comparison (one star versus three stars), I imagine the one star edition to be the morning one and the three stars, the evening one.

Any thought on this rather nitpicking subject?

Welcome, Drew. One thing you'll find about the Fanfic Related board is that you can ask any crazy question and get an answer. It's the greatest resourse a fanfic writer can have.

ML