What does a child born in the digital age make of newspaper newsrooms?
When we heard Chloe Lord, the 11-year-old daughter of Dave, our assistant editor (news), was coming to spend a whole day with us, we were slightly concerned — wouldn’t someone born in the age of social media and instant mobile communication find our ways a bit slow and boring?
Well, we shouldn’t have worried. This is Chloe’s unedited account of her “amazing” day, from the moment she encountered our friendly, smiling faces (yes, that surprised us too) to the thrill of seeing the papers rolling off the presses.
Chloe hopefully gained a little more understanding about the world of work, but we also learned some things — mainly that newspapers can still excite younger people, and that Chloe is much better at spelling than her dad.
“I loved it!”
When I arrived my dad showed me the plan for the next days Courier. Then he showed me how to access stories people had emailed him, writes Chloe Lord.
He also showed me how to save stories he liked and thought would be good to go in the Courier and what to do with stories that aren’t as important as the main stories.
He looks through some of his many emails and picks some stories for the drop wing and some stories for lead page stories. He goes through Perth, Angus, Fife and Dundee’s schedule for that day.
My dad phones all the offices about whats happening in the Courier and about stories.
The staff are all very kind and cheerful and all welcomed me with a big smile on their face.
At 10:00am I went to my dad’s meeting and heard everyones ideas and thoughts about the stories that were coming in from Angus, Perth, Fife and Dundee.
They were talking about what was going to happen in the next days Courier and what pages all their stories were going to go on. The meeting last about 40mins long.
At 11:30am I got an amazing tour of the magazine room, it was fantastic.
Everyone was so kind and cheerful. I got a goodie bag including something signed by Nick Sharrat and Jacqueline Wilson. I also got two shout magazines and alot of Jacqueline Wilson goodies and bag!
I went to go visit the printing press room and it was amazing.
I also got a fabulous tour of the printing press by Guy.
I loved seeing how all the newspapers got made and printed and i also loved seeing the giant toilet rolls! It was an amazing and unforgettable experience.
At the 4:00pm meeting everyone talked about their final decisions and all the stories.
They agree on what pictures they were going to use and confirmed what story was going to go on each page.
This meeting was a lot shorter then the 10:00am meeting and only lasted about 15mins.
Before I left my dad’s work he checked over all the stories to make sure they were all ok and ready to be printed for the next day.
Thats how my amazing day at my dad’s work went.
I loved it!