It is important to understand the flow of news inside a news room so that you will understand how headlines are selected, how artwork is determined, and how your story moves from an interview of questions and answers to a finished news story. Once the interview is over, the reporter files (writes and turns in) the story. According to the deadline the file date might be that afternoon or not until the following week or two. After it has been filed, the story is sent to the editors who may or may not get to the story right away (depending upon their deadlines). In some cases the reporter may not even be there when the story gets edited so may not be on hand to answer questions or clarify should an editor have a question. In almost all cases, the reporter does not see the story again until it hits the pages. Unless there are crucial questions the editor may have, the story will move directly onto the copy editor and page layout crews. The copy editor will be more removed from the news story than the editor is. On average, copy editors work late afternoon and/or evening hours when even the editors have gone home. So there really is no one there to ask questions of. On occasion they do call the reporter at home, but not always. Time is limited and deadlines are tight so they do the best they can with the story as it appears before them. This means the reporter may not be aware of any edits that have made by either the editor or the copy editor. In some cases this can result in unfortunate errors. For example, a transition paragraph that separates comments by two different people may be deleted. The result is a series of comments that appear out of context or not attributed to the right source. It is important to remember that the reporter is not responsible for that. The reporter is responsible for accurately portraying the interview and rarely has any input into the editing of a story or the selection of headlines and sub headlines that accompany it. The same applies to photographs and cutlines (photograph captions). These are often provided by the photographer or the copy editor and are not always checked against the article for consistency of name spelling, etc. On occasion, too, less flattering photographs may appear because the page layout may only have room for horizontal photographs (even though the vertical version may be more appealing). When mistakes do occur, notify your public relations specialist who will contact the media (if you do not have a pr specialist working with you, contact the reporter). If the errors are critical to the story (wrong phone number for public contact or serious misquote/edit of original quote) the publication may print a correction. If you are interested in using the news article, check with the publication to learn what rights (if any) the publication has. In some cases they own full rights and you can only use the work with their permission. If the story belongs to the writer (most often, a freelancer) it may be possible to purchase one time use of the story. Be sure to get permission in writing before using the story for your own purposes (that includes posting to a website). 2008-02-29T01:25:24Z -26.2013 463 336 true 14 6401 what-happens-to-your-story-in-the-news-room 5 2008-02-29T01:44:40Z 2008-02-29T01:44:40Z

<p>From interview to page layout, and reprints for your website,&nbsp;here's a&nbsp;brief look at the journey a news story takes.</p>

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