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On 10 December 1999 an amazing article appeared in the British media weekly newspaper, the Press Gazette.  Written with perception and subtlety by Jean Morgan (right), the article tells of the Press Association's 'Page-Ready' news service, whereby the PA produces whole pages for newspapers across Britain. 
    Without doubt the most worrying development in Britain's increasingly 'Orwellian' news industry is the tendency and ease with which news articles are reproduced by newspapers and ascribed to its own staff, though they have, in fact, been based on information provided by some remote, anonymous Press Association journalist whose prime criterion is not accuracy, completeness, even-handedness, or accountability, but merely 'turnaround' time (i.e. no time to check facts) and 'spin' (i.e. to create the most sensationalist story from the most meagre, innocuous information).

    In her article, reproduced below, Morgan quotes the PA executive in charge of the operation, Terry Manners, extensively.  She reports his emphasis on his staff's experience, who, he explains "...understand that you can't use the same word twice in headlines on the same page, understand you can't repeat the same word twice in a paragraph...'
    The tenor of Morgan's piece conveys the nervous energy that pervades the operation.  But nowhere, not even when discussing the training of graduate journalists, does Manners emphasise the importance of ensuring that a news bulletin should actually be accurate.

There is a back bench, a middle bench, revise subs, proof readers, twice-daily conferences -and a lot of swearing - but at the end of the day, no newspaper. To discover the end product you would have to read a dozen regional evening papers and two mornings and it would be difficult to tell that some of their pages have been created outside their offices by a "ghost" newspaper staff, who are replicating their styles to the last em. 
    In a rapidly expanding modern compound in Leeds, the Press Association's page-ready service has become the similitude of a newspaper production desk since former Express Scottish editor Terry Manners joined it just over three months ago.

    To Manners, PA page-ready is a "living, breathing newspaper office" where his hand-picked team is turning round home and international news and supplements on a 24-hour basis.
    Between 6am and 11am, Manners and evening paper services editor David Mastin, a former deputy editor of the Sheffield Star, oversee 25 pages of news for papers around the country.  There's a short break and then the day sub-editors move over to working on supplements for the millennium year.  By 2.30pm, the first of the morning paper staff are appearing to hear their orders from morning newspaper services editor Nick Jenkins, ex-deputy editor of the Yorkshire Post.  When Jenkins' journalists leave at 11 pm, an overnight squad takes its place to provide furniture for next morning's pages. 
    The experience of his two lieutenants is key to Manners' philosophy in building his "newspaper culture".
    He calls his new recruits "pedigree" journalists.  He reels off their impressive journalistic CVs as he points them out.  There's Chris Harvey, former assistant editor of the Hull Daily Mail, Simon Barker from Teletext, Ian Wilson from The Herald via PA News in London...
    "It's a whole list of journalists who understand the culture of newspapers, understand that you can't use the same word twice in headlines on the same page, understand you can't repeat the same word twice in a paragraph, that paragraphs have to be 25 to 30 words top whack," says Manners.
    It's important because every day the evening paper team is producing pages for 10 different newspapers simultaneously.
    "They have got to have come through the mill.  And they are in constant touch with all their customers.  My editors are talking to their production editors, chief subs, night editors, day editors.  We know what their splash is going to be, what their P3 is going to be - we have to."
    The content of the outgoing stories, from PA newswires, is the same. "But the packaging is how we bespoke it," Manners explains.  Every time a contract is signed with a newspaper, Manners' chief sub will go to that newspaper and compile a style book with the paper's chief sub so that fonts and in-house style are followed to the letter.  Close contact is maintained with visits on a monthly basis by two executives to individual newspapers.  Gradually, antipathy of the "This is our newspaper. What the bloody hell does PA know about it?" kind is being worn down.
    "I want them to build a rapport - I want my lot to talk to theirs about football, how awful England were last night ..."
    Then when it comes to nitty-gritty: "We tell them what the main 20 stories of the day are and what we've done on the page.  They may want to change the lead.  If it's the Cambridge Evening News (which takes three pages) they may want to switch the lead from page to page.
    "Maybe they will want a page lead which we haven't got.  In which case, we order it from our reporters in the provinces."

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