My Newsroom Experience

Anytime I close from school and go to my mum's workplace, Graphic Communications Group Limited, I note some interesting things that I would like to share with you.

When I climb the stairs leading to the Graphic Editorial Office, I see many security men in green uniforms. But one day I met one in blue and I asked my mum the reason he was the only one wearing a blue uniform.

She told me that was because he was the head of all the security men. Also, he was a member of staff of Graphic, while those in green were from a private company.

In the Editorial Office, I see a whole lot of workers and I am sure their number will be 60. They are always busy, moving up and down to make sure stories have been 'dropped'. “Drop' is a term they use to indicate that the stories have been passed on to the computers.

Before the stories are 'dropped', there are people who read through them to make sure everything is correct. Some examples of the people who read the stories before they are 'dropped' are proofreaders, sub-editors and night editors.

A night editor is the person who waits for the newspaper to be printed and who reads a copy to check if everything is correct.

After the stories have been 'dropped', they go to the Image Section for impositioning, which simply refers to joining pages together. For example, if 48 pages are going to be printed, it means page 1 goes with page 48, page 2 goes with page 47, and so on.

After the impositioning has been done, it goes through process. That is, it goes on a film for the final approval of the night editors. As to what happens at processing, I don't know because by that time I would have left.

Ophelia Agyepong

JHS 1

St Martin Depores, Dansoman, Accra.