A Day in the Life of The Sydney Morning Herald

6am: Herald day staff start waking, turning to radio, TV and the day's papers. Reporters, editors and chiefs of staff get across the breadth of news unfolding before starting work. It's news for breakfast.

8am: The first Herald staff arrive at the city office. The copy person glances at views over much of Sydney before distributing the day's papers and the overnight mail and faxes. The news desk administrator answers calls from readers with comments, queries and tips.

9am: The chief of staff arrives, head full of the morning's news. He or she consults with reporters, collating events of the day and allocating tasks. Advertising sales staff finalise ad space allocations and liaise with clients. The letters editor starts reading through the 500 or so letters that arrive each day.

10.30am: Advertising sales close for the day and the ad book -- a draft flat plan of a blank newspaper with the ad space marked out -- arrives at the news desk and editor's office. Sales staff spend the rest of the day working ahead.

11am: Morning news conference begins. This is where the paper begins to take shape. The editor, deputy editor, chief of staff, photographic editor and other editors discuss story ideas, angles and series, deciding which to pursue. The main stories and the news focus for the day are discussed. Graphics and photographs to accompany each story are planned. Early thoughts are formed on how the editorial content will be placed around the allocated ad space. The editor is in constant contact with advertising executives to coordinate space allocation, which changes frequently during the day.

11.30am: In sections such as Metro, Domain, Good Living and My Career, journalists, designers, artists and illustrators work towards different weekly deadlines. Editors plan for next day, next week, next month. Journalists talk to readers and other contacts, wondering what they'll learn. Other journalists trawl wire services, looking for publishable stories and interesting snippets.

Noon: Out on the job. News journalists make phone calls and attend press conferences, door stops and interviews, trawling for information on a story. They read. They think. They speak to as many people as possible to flesh out an issue and present it in a balanced way. Photographers, illustrators and artists work with journalists, creating images to complement words.

12.30pm: The advertising department forwards a final copy of the ad book to the editor and pre-press staff. Last-minute cancellations or bookings are accounted for, as are classifieds, and the layout is adjusted. Advertising staff work to deadlines two days prior to the publication of the daily paper and constantly generate new clients for future editions.

2pm: Night staff begins to arrive. These are the people who will take the words and images developed during the day, and turn them into a newspaper.

4pm: Afternoon news conference starts. It's a similar group to that at morning conference, with the addition of the chief sub-editors and the night editor, who will now take over from the editor. Stories, and their angles and implications, are discussed in depth. Possible follow up stories are considered. News stories, photographs and illustrations are positioned in the paper and assigned to pages. Photographs are displayed and discussed -- sometimes a story's position in the paper will depend on the strength of the photograph. After afternoon conference, the daytime editors start to plan the following day's paper, and the night editors takes over the running of current edition. Advertising layout staff begin working on page layout for the following day, drawing up a draft ad book.

4.30pm: The chief sub-editor begins "copy-tasting", reading through stories filed by reporters and allocating stories to a page within the paper. The order of news depends on the importance, timeliness and interest of each article, and the need for a good mix of stories on different subjects, throughout the paper.

5pm: Across the newsroom, reporters rush to finish and file their stories. Facts are checked, frantic calls made, paragraphs re-written. If a story is likely to get top billing, on page one or three, the deadline may be extended an hour or two. But for most, it's now or never.

6pm: The news editor and chief of staff watch the TV news, making sure the news of the day is covered. The inside parts of the paper -- features pages, editorials, letters and opinion pages -- are being finalised. Staff in weekly sections are off home.

6.15pm: Another conference. This time, a small and senior group meets to decide finally what should be on page one. By this stage, the content of the rest of the paper has been decided upon. There is a shortlist of five to six stories to choose from. The conference debates the quality and newsworthiness of the potential front page stories which have already been filed, and receive updated briefings on stories still being written. If there is indecision about what should go on the front page, the editor makes a final decision.

6.30pm: The night chief of staff reads stories as they are filed. Some are sent back to journalists for more information, or kept over to work on again the next day. Most pass muster and are sent to sub-editors, who check facts, accuracy, fairness, clarity and newsworthiness. They lay pages out on computer templates and write headlines and photo captions. Pages are re-worked as better stories, photos and graphics arrive. The only constant is change.

7pm: Lawyers check stories for contempt of court, defamation or other problems. Everybody else is flat out, too -- this is peak hour for a daily newspaper.

7.30pm: Most reporters have gone, some are still checking facts and finding last details to drop into stories. One lone night reporter stays until 11pm, adding to existing stories and chasing new ones. Photos, illustrations and cartoons are dropped into pages. Pages are printed out and proofed. Dinners are eaten at the computer terminal.

9pm: The Herald's first edition is sent electronically to the printing plant at Chullora. There, computer page files are converted to etched aluminium plates for the presses. The aluminium plates are placed on metal cylinders which roll and stamp ink onto bare newspaper. For colour pages, four plates of cyan (blue), yellow, magenta and black are combined to create virtually any hue.

10pm: Pages roll off the press and are folded and trimmed to form a newspaper. This edition is trucked all over NSW and flown interstate. Back in the office, the chief sub and the night editor review the first edition, fixing errors of style, typography and, if needed, fact. They also change stories and lay-out which don't reach the high standards expected, and drop in late-breaking news. A second edition develops.

11pm: The second edition is sent to the printers. When done, it goes to newsagents, newsstands and shops throughout Sydney and major regional centres. Most staff are off home.

12am: Usually, a third edition is finalised and sent to the printers. This goes to inner metropolitan Sydney. The office is now quiet apart from a couple of hardy souls.

3am: Cleaners work at the piles of papers that accumulate each day. One person stays, monitoring police radios. If something significant happens, the chief of staff is woken and staff may be called to get out there. Otherwise, all is quiet. At Chullora, the last of the 300,000 or so papers printed each weekday is sent out.

4am: Newsagents receive the fresh papers and wrap them in plastic, ready to be dropped on lawns and driveways and letterboxes and verandahs across the state.

5am: The day's Herald lands on subscribers' doorsteps. Commuters and early morning walkers pick it up from newsstands, ready to digest the day's news. Back at the newsroom, the daily cycle is about to begin again.

Compiled by Clara Iaccarino, Jacqueline Maley and Bonnie Malkin