Rewrite man
Encyclopedia
The rewrite man is a newspaper
reporter who works in the office, not on the street, taking information reported by others and crafting it into stories. It is rarely used as an actual title. The term rewrite man is something of a misnomer. Some are women, of course. Rewrite men do not just "rewrite". They take notes gathered by on-the-scene-reporters, information gathered by telephone, or from wire service
s or clippings from other newspapers, and write articles.
Sometimes an entire front page, with bylines from several different reporters, will have actually been written by a single rewrite man working with an editor. The job has lost much of its importance due to technology that allows reporters to write and transmit articles from the field. In the pre-computer days of newspaper work, however, it was vital. At the most extreme example, reporters on deadline
would telephone into the newsroom and dictate their notes to an editor - hence the movie cliché of reporters rushing to telephone booths and shouting "Get me rewrite!" into the phone.
Rewrite men are common at large national magazines, where reporters handle the reporting of the story while a writer takes the material and writes the actual article. In this case, the reporter will put all the information and quotes gathered into a multipage file which is then given to the writer. In cases of a story in several areas, several reporters will give their files to the writer. The article which is written has all of the information and observations by the reporter(s). People Magazine stories are written in this format with field reporters doing the reporting and New York based writers writing the pieces. Time magazine also used to engage rewrite men almost exclusively, although it has all but abandoned the practice as of its 2008 redesign.
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
reporter who works in the office, not on the street, taking information reported by others and crafting it into stories. It is rarely used as an actual title. The term rewrite man is something of a misnomer. Some are women, of course. Rewrite men do not just "rewrite". They take notes gathered by on-the-scene-reporters, information gathered by telephone, or from wire service
News agency
A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to news organizations: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. Such an agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire or news service.-History:The oldest news agency is Agence...
s or clippings from other newspapers, and write articles.
Sometimes an entire front page, with bylines from several different reporters, will have actually been written by a single rewrite man working with an editor. The job has lost much of its importance due to technology that allows reporters to write and transmit articles from the field. In the pre-computer days of newspaper work, however, it was vital. At the most extreme example, reporters on deadline
Time limit
A time limit or deadline is a narrow field of time, or particular point in time, by which an objective or task must be accomplished.In project management, deadlines are most often associated with milestone goals....
would telephone into the newsroom and dictate their notes to an editor - hence the movie cliché of reporters rushing to telephone booths and shouting "Get me rewrite!" into the phone.
Rewrite men are common at large national magazines, where reporters handle the reporting of the story while a writer takes the material and writes the actual article. In this case, the reporter will put all the information and quotes gathered into a multipage file which is then given to the writer. In cases of a story in several areas, several reporters will give their files to the writer. The article which is written has all of the information and observations by the reporter(s). People Magazine stories are written in this format with field reporters doing the reporting and New York based writers writing the pieces. Time magazine also used to engage rewrite men almost exclusively, although it has all but abandoned the practice as of its 2008 redesign.