Rewrite man
|
|
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, and rewrite men do not just "rewrite". They take notes gathered by on-the-scene-reporters, information gathered by telephone, or from wire services or clippings from other newspapers, and create 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 cliche of reporters rushing to telephone booths and shouting "Get me rewrite!" into the phone.
See Chicago's American for an example of how rewrite men work.