What was it like being at the news desk on the evening of September 11? On the day of the Port Arthur massacre? And on the weekend when Princess Diana was killed in that tunnel in Paris?
Few readers, even the dedicated ones, have any real understanding of how a newspaper functions, and of its daily needs and appetites. Who makes the decision to publish a particular story? Why are some stories covered and others ignored? Who is who on a newspaper -- what does the editor-in-chief do, how does this role affect the editor, and what about the role of the chief of staff and the news editor? And where does advertising fit into all this?
'Death, Sex & Money' will take you behind a newspaper's news desk, and afford you a glimpse into the frenetic world of newspaper journalism, in an age when newspapers have moved from being a special kind of business to being just another business. It will show how a newspaper moves from being empty at the start of the day to being full twelve hours later, put readers in the shoes of a journalist on the news-gathering trail and, among other things, examine the truisms of what drives circulation. Critically, it examines what it is that newspapers consider news.
