Your local newspaper is a wealth of information about the issues, events and people in your world. It has a multitude of contents coming from several departments, which work together to put out a newspaper on a daily, weekly, or two or more times per week, basis.

The more often a newspaper is published and the greater the circulation (the number of papers printed), the more elaborate the departments which make up the newspaper.

Here at the Williamson Daily News, we have five major departments, each of which does an important job, necessary to keep the paper moving on a daily basis. The advertising department is composed of the money makers, so to speak, as sales people hit the streets every day, selling spots in the paper to raise the funds necessary to keep the business going.The money elicited by the advertising department personnel from local businesses is the biggest source of income for a newspaper.

Once the “ad” department sells an advertiser a spot in the paper, the composing department takes the information and builds an ad to go in that spot. Composers use computer programs and artwork to construct the advertisement according to the purchasers instructions.

Some local children were afforded an opportunity to compose advertisements (via drawing) for the Daily News special Newspapers in Education section “Through Kids Eyes ...” Newspapers in Education is an organization which promotes educators using newspapers in their curriculum and provides various support services and a variety of ideas on how to utilize the important information inside a newspaper to engage young readers.

The list of advertisements for a certain day are used to determine how many pages will go in the newspaper. Boxes are drawn for each advertisement on the pages in the template for the day and placed on a server, a computer to which the composing and editorial departments both connect in order to share information.

The editorial department is responsible for all content that is not advertising and gets the variety of information from various sources before editing, proofing and preparing it to go on the pages. Reporters get information for stories from public meetings and records, court cases, accidents, and other sources. News tips from the public flow through faxes, mail and email from government agencies, organizations, police departments, businesses, etc., all of which is monitored and selected for print, based on what is important and/or of interest to readers. The information is then compiled if necessary and placed on the pages by editors and proofed for mistakes, misspellings, grammatical errors, timeliness, and a host of other factors too numerous to mention here.

When the pages are filled with editorial content and the advertisements are placed, the electronic file which is composed on a computer via software called Quark at the Daily News, is sent to the printing press in Logan, W.Va. A production, or printing crew prepares the electronic pages for the press and prints the paper, placing them to the side for circulation department employees to insert sales papers and bring them back to the Daily news for distribution.

The circulation department brings the papers from Logan to Williamson, where carriers pick up enough for their routes. The carriers then brave all kinds of weather to get the paper to the subscriber each afternoon, while circulation personnel fill machines at locations all over Mingo County ad in various places in surrounding counties.

Another important department is the business office or billing, through which all the paper’s money flows for documentation. A business manager keeps up with who owes the paper and who has paid for advertisements, obituaries, and other paid items. The manager also keeps track of what bills the paper has paid, the payroll information for employees and a host of other items necessary to the proper functioning of the Williamson Daily News.

All five of these departments are monitored by a publisher who focuses on keeping each department running efficiently to ensure a good product, as he knows the proper functioning of each departments is vital to the success of each edition the Daily News puts out. The publisher has the ultimate say in all decisions for the paper, as he is top boss, and usually has numerous years of experience in the business such as the Williamson Daily News Publisher Gaither Perry, who has been in newspapers for 30-plus years.

This is a quick description of how a newspaper is put together and does not include a multitude of other factors, processes, and people involved. However, it does tell the basic steps taken to ensure Williamson Daily readers have a paper each day.