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 This department probably puts out more parts of the paper than any other, including: daily Life & Arts sections, Gusto, NeXt, Friday Home & Garden, Sunday Spotlight, Weekend Life, TV Topics, Saturday Religion and $MoneySmart. The writers concentrate on entertainment, health, food, television, fashion, classical and pop music. The critics review restaurants, movies, television, music, art and drama.
The department's critics review more than 100 restaurants a year, preview 200 movies, and attend several hundred concerts from the BPO to Beyonce. ^top
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People in these two departments take the pictures and design the pages – especially the section fronts – in the newspaper. The photographers all use digital technology – so no more film – and the graphic artists assemble stories, pictures, headlines and graphics on the pages on their computer screens.
The News publishes 18,000 photographs a year, of which more than 7,000 are taken by our staff of 12 photographers; all of it is done digitally with no more film or chemicals. ^top
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The largest of The News’ editorial departments, the “city desk” covers Buffalo, all the suburbs and has reporters in Albany and Washington, D.C. Subject areas, called “beats,” include politics, crime, health, religion, city and county governments, culture, architecture, investigations and transportation, among others.
The local news staff here is larger than at the three local television stations and all the local radio stations combined. ^top |
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News editors – in consultation with the paper’s top editors – assign where stories go on Page 1, inside the “A” section and the City & Region section. They also decide how long the stories should be, whether they should include a picture, how large the headline should be and how many stories should be used per page.
The News comes out every day of the year, which amounts to 1,600-2,000 sections of the paper – the A section, City & Region, Life & Arts, Business, Sports and weekly ones like Gusto, NeXt and Viewpoints -- that are built from scratch each day. ^top |
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While most of what The News prints is written or photographed locally, much of it is supplied by various wire services. The most prominent is The Associated Press, the world’s largest news-gathering organization. Editors at the wire desk work with the news editors to determine the best state, national and international stories and then edit those stories to fit the news editors’ decisions.
Mark Twain said of The Associated Press: “There are only two forces that carry light to all corners of the globe, the sun in the heavens and The Associated Press down here.” ^top |
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At the newsroom’s center, copy editors write headlines and give all news stories – as opposed to sports, business and features, which have their own copy editors – careful readings to make sure facts, spellings, grammar and content are correct. These editors are the “last line of defense.” After them, the story goes to be printed.^top
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These writers, editors and photographers cover local, regional and national sports events and athletes. They write about and photograph everything from the Olympics and the Super Bowl, to the Bills and Sabres to college and high school athletics.
Sports covers 120 high schools and an average of 2,400 of their teams, more than 10 colleges and another 150 of their teams, plus the Olympics, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB. There are also reports on fishing, auto racing, horse racing, hunting, racket sports, running, skiing and boating. ^top |
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This department is responsible for covering local business news as well as national and international financial news. It supplies all sorts of consumer information, stock tables and other financial data.
The Business section is the paper’s most productive, turning out more than 1,500 stories a year from a staff of five reporters. ^top |
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The editorial writers work separate from the newsroom. They present the opinions of The Buffalo News as a journalistic institution. Their opinions have nothing to do with how the news is covered. The writers are part of the “editorial board,” which includes the publisher and the editor and meets daily to debate crucial issues. The department also handles “Everybody’s Column,” the letters to the editor, as well as outside opinion columns, editorial cartoons, and the Sunday Viewpoints section.
Two of The News’s three Pulitzer Prizes went to editorial cartoonists. ^top |
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This computerized data department files and catalogues all The News’s stories and photos. If it’s appeared in The News over 125-plus years, you can find it here. In addition, members of the staff assist reporters working with databases on various topics for stories, especially investigative ones.
In 1991, a News reporter aided, by library research, found that a serial rapist and murderer attacked women in Buffalo and Amherst, something police had never reported publicly. Today such information gathering is routine in the computerized databases here. The library archives 58,000 articles a year; 37,000 are staff written. ^top |
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