The Arunachal Times: one working night experience.

No I am not working here neither got hired. 

People, I present to you the firsthand insights of the most popular and circulated daily newspaper of the state Arunachal Pradesh. In short, biggest print media house of Arunachal Pradesh. Trust me it will not be boring and everything that you see here are something which you have never ever seen before. Also it is my one night office hour experience there, so chi.... L, it will not be like the boring educational essays. 

Now everyone is aware of what a newspaper looks like, but do you know how it is actually prepared? You may say collecting reports of news worthy events, editing and then printing. Yes you are not wrong, but people, there are so much than just the mentioned above stages or steps, atleast that is what I have experienced. And in this blog you are going to find out and precisely see the actual and depth process of making a newspaper with glimpses of the media house: The Arunachal Times. 

Unlike any other offices, a print media house opens and starts its work when the sun goes down, so did we(me, my classmates and our professor) visited during evening hour.

Of course the reporter reports during the day and bring its reports to the office table by evening, and once it is submitted, the brains of editors starts and editing is done. Likewise, we were also told beforehand to bring articles, poems, photographs, caricature or any other materials with us, so as to publish our selected materials in the sunday edition of the newspaper; one page called 'Spark: The Newspage for Young People' of the newspaper which was supposed to be entirely filled by our materials. 

Surprisingly, besides our already brought materials, we were divided into three groups and were given different tasks(writing article, caricature, poem, etc), our group had to come up with a fictional story within few hours. So we came up with 'Reminiscing the good all days', a fictional yet relevant story especially for the youths, and fortunately it was selected; shining through the works of other groups.

Ow here I was compiling and editing our final fictional story, I preferred shawl over jacket for the night, because I gotta cover my face while sleeping, you do not want to let anyone see your face while sleeping. Anyways, some of my personal beforehand work which were selected was my poem titled "Life goes on" and a photograph of my grandmother; thinking about my grandmother's photo printed in a legit newspaper made me real happy, not me who was so overwhelmed back then when my grandmother's different photo was given place in our department's college newsletter, I was literally so proud of myself LOL. 

Coming back to different stages, after the final materials were selected, layout(placing of materials in the page appropriately) started and after that the very Intriguing step took place in the production stage - The literal cutting and pasting/tapping step.

Pardon me for not being able to explain this step in detail. All i can say is here, the person was placing the different plastic sheets into alignment with the RGB(red green blue) marks.

 People here comes the real fascinating step. The above prepared plastic sheet is then processed under this machine 

and then the materials in that plastic sheet is transferred to a metal sheet, which is being washed later by a chemical(developer it is called). 

Now the above metal sheet is used in the giant printing machine for printing numbers of copies of the same.

The sound of the printing machine is quite loud, feels like standing right in front of a rice mill (those old ones which ran by using diesel). 

And here is the big role of the paper which is used in newspaper. 

People, holding the first newspaper of the day in your hand before anyone else and that too with your works and name in it, felt different.

 The brainstorming and sacrifice of your sleep becomes worth it. And yes we were in the office from evening till the next morning, witnessing every steps of a print media. 

Is it this hard to work in a print media? Do we not sleep the whole night? Do we not eat dinner? Etc. 

No it is not like that. Every stage or steps has respective personnel to do it, and once they finish their respective work, they leaves the office. For instance, the reporter submits the report and leaves the office, likewise the editor comes and edits, then he/she leaves, then the layout team starts their job later followed by printing team and once sufficient number of newspaper is printed, the paper distributor comes early in the morning and starts to distribute to the general. 

Now here comes the scenario of how we slept or had dinner. First thing, since there were no extra room in the office, we, around 30 students sat anywhere and ate package dinner on chair, some on floor including me, it was not that bad though. And here's me a slow eater, sweeping after our dinner, since I was the last one to eat as usual. 

People! I have the surviving skills ok! LOL. 

Also you should clean your own mess. 

well most of the student slept on the floor without any sheets, some on chair, desk, and I, couldn't even take a nap, you know it's not that comfortable to sleep on a desk or chair. Me being a night owl, helped me a little in this trip to print media though. But my body gave up when we were heading back to the university on bus. 

I slept so deep that I had to be woken up by my fellow mate; felt like the one hour road was shortened to few minutes. 

Overall, it was a good and indeed knowledge gaining experience. Hopefully it may go same for you after going through this blog. 

Will probably post the fictional story and poem in the next blog. Until then, stay safe and take care, Tatatata.