Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press

The people in charge of newspaper content are editors. The people who write for them are

journalists, sometimes referred to informally as journos or insultingly as hacks. Someone who writes articles that appear regularly, usually in the same place in the paper, and often with powerfully expressed opinions, is a columnist.

The British national press is referred to as Fleet Street, although no national paper is now produced in this London street.

With rapidly falling circulation figures, journalists have demanded the editor's dismissal.

He's also spending time keeping hacks out of the way because they keep asking Dennis about girlfriends.

Courier is like the hard-news journo of cliche, who thinks only about the glory of the story.

Most journos know of a colleague who abandoned journalism for advertising. We curl our lips at such a fellow. He's a sell-out, a loser, somebody who couldn't stand the pace in the real game.

A respect for the role of the king prevents the Spanish media from taking the aggressive Fleet Street approach to monarch's private lives.

At the bar, we found vituperative columnist Julie Burchill and thought, a! last, here is someone who is bound to be rude and abrasive. But Burchill was a babe.

Newspapers run or carry articles or stories. Articles other than the most important ones can also be referred to as pieces.

Editorials give the paper's opinion about the news of the day. In a quality paper, the most important editorial is the leading article or leader. These, and the other editorials, are written by leader writers.

'The Financial Times' carries an article on the situation in Albania.

'The Wall Street Journal' ran an article about people in Belgium who have seen flying triangular-shaped craft.

'The National' ran a piece about a boxer who'd had to have his legs amputated because of the damage steroid use had done.

The resignation was the top story for the 'NewYork Times'. In a leader, the paper said that on the issues affecting America most, substantial continuity would be assured under any of the contenders for the leadership.

Following his criticism of social workers, may I suggest that your leader writer should spend a month as a social worker to see just how stressful and demanding the job is - and be paid the same salary as the social worker.

Some of the editorial leader writers put their fingers on the pulse of several points worth discussing.