Charlotte Varcoe-Wolfson
Today I went on a field trip to The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Daily News news rooms. I learned a few things and I got to see what a newsroom actually looks like. Before we arrived, I didn’t know what I should expect it to look like, but when I got there, I was surprised. It was just big room filled with office cubicles. When we walked around I noticed that all of the desks were very messy and filled with papers that I expect are related to whatever article they were writing at the time. I think that I had sort of expected it to be busier, but the person showing us around said that it wasn’t very busy because more people work at night, which I thought was a very interesting fact.

The first thing I learned was how the economical state of our country is affecting newspapers all around the country. Companies that usually would put their advertisements in the newspaper can’t pay for the advertisements so the newspaper loses part of their income.

Next, I saw how passionate the newspaper staff was about their jobs. There was one man that we talked to, that went on and on about how much fun his job is, and how much he loved doing it. We also meet another man, who was in charge of the photos in the paper. He explained the whole process to us, and he was telling us that he used to be a photographer, but now he just put the photos in the paper. By the way he was talking about it and his excitement, I could really see his love for his job.

Another thing I learned is that there are very few editorial cartoonists anymore. In Texas there is only one editorial cartoonist working for a newspaper, and Texas is as big as some countries. I think that that is really a problem, because editorial cartoons are about serious topics, but also usually have a joke, so it’s a different way of looking at news.

Lastly, I found out that even though The Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer are owned and run by the same company, they mostly write about different things, and they are run in the same building, they are still competing. I think that on one hand that is reasonable, because they both need people to buy their newspaper to make a profit. On the other hand though, why should they be fighting? They are run by the same company and so I think they would have an equal chance of selling.

I got a lot out of this trip and I hope now when I see a newspaper, I will think of all of those people I meet that wrote what’s in front of me, and think of the newsroom, and I will be able to look at it in a different way.

Eddie McCann
The first day we returned from spring break, our class found out that we would be traveling to Philadelphia and visiting The Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. This was made possible because of a friend of Tr. Lea’s currently works for The Daily News and worked for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Once we arrived at the building, everybody finally realized the significance of where we were. It was the building that produced the main newspapers of Philadelphia; read by about one million people around the city.We visited The Daily News first. Inside, the room was much the same as one might imagine. There were desks going on for about 100 feet. People were working diligently, but as our guide said, most of the work gets completed at night because of the need to have the paper ready by morning. Some of the journalists introduced themselves, telling us how they became to be a writer/journalist. “I love my job. You would think that in this recession game creators might stop making games. But no! It’s just like before when the economy was doing well. I’m a very busy person and I enjoy my job. But be careful what you wish for! Because the work goes on and on and on” Jonathan Takiff, a journalist who tests games, electrical devices, and listens to music CDs for his job at The Daily News told us in a very serious manner. This told me that journalists have fun when they work, mainly because there is always something new and different to write about. I, personally, would choose this career to strive for if I had to choose a topic to write about for a paper, because it interests me the most.

Later in the tour, I asked, David Preston, our guide, “I know that the economy is affecting your newspaper. Have you seen other companies not advertise in your paper because the economy is hurting so much that they can’t afford it?”

“Yes. We’ve seen that a lot recently. A big company such as Best Buy is a perfect example.”
“Has your budget for advertising decreased because of this?”

“Yes,” he said honestly, “the amount of ads in the paper has decreased significantly, also because it’s much easier for these big companies to use the internet to advertise successfully.”

The tour then moved up to the third floor where The Philadelphia Inquirer was displayed. Everybody was in awe because of the immense size of the room that people were working in. The people working for The Philadelphia Inquirer seemed much more serious than the people working for The Daily News. This might have been because The Philadelphia Inquirer is a much longer paper with many more sections and articles.

The most significant aspect of this trip that I learned is if you are a reporter, there is no one story. There are different stories, different interviews. You are never doing the same thing over and over again. Also, I learned that the newspaper can be thought of as a voice for current events. People may be shy to say their thoughts. One of the newspaper’s jobs is to give the city or town that thought. I realized that people who work for the paper almost treat their job as a service to the community.