t day is the city
room. Before coming, he will have seen the city editor and received
instructions as to the time. If the office is that of a morning paper,
he will probably be required to come some time between noon and six P.M.
If it is that of an afternoon paper, he will be asked to report at six
or seven A.M. Let us suppose it is a metropolitan afternoon journal and
that he is requested to be in the office at seven, the hour when the
city editor appears. The ambitious reporter will always be in his place
not later than 6:45, so that he may see the city editor enter.

=5. Copy Readers.=--When a reporter appears on his first morning, he
will find a big, desk-crowded room, deserted except for two or three
silent workers reading and clipping papers at a long table. These men
are known variously as the gas-house gang, the lobster shift, the
morning stars, etc. They are the reporters and copy readers who read the
morning papers for stories that may be rewritten or followed up for
publication during the day. They have been on duty since two or three in
the morning and have prepared most of the material for the bull-dog
edition, the morning issue printed some time between 7:00 and 10:00 A.M.
and mainly rewritten from the morning papers. On the entrance of the new
reporter they will look up, direct him to a chair where he may sit until
the city editor comes, and pay no more attention to him. They, or others
who take their places, edit all the news stories. They correct spelling
and punctuation, rewrite a story when the reporter has missed the main
feature, reconstruct the lead, cut out contradictions, duplications, and
libelous statements, and in general make the article conform to the
length and style demanded by the paper; and having carefully revised the
story, they write the headlines and chute it to the composing room. On
the whole, these men are the most unpopular on the force, since they are
subject to double criticism, from the editors above them and the
reporters whose copy they correct. The city editor and the managing
editor hold them responsible for poor headlines, libelous statements,
involved sentences, and errors generally; the reporters blame them for
pruning down their stories, changing leads, and often destroying what
they regard as the very point of what they had to say.

=6. Other Reporters.=--As the new reporter waits by the city editor's
desk, he will notice the arrival of the other members of the staff