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Q: What role do you play in the development and presentation of a breaking news story?

A: My last job was deputy editor of Night & Day and my role in the development of a news story began with deciding how to cover the story, through commissioning the writer and overseeing the editing and lay-out of the story; everything from thinking up the headline and intro to picking the main photo. As Night & Day was the supplement to a Sunday newspaper, we had to two basic ways to respond to a news story. The first was to plan ahead for a fixed event and run a preview-style piece the Sunday before it. For example, the opening of Parliament after the summer would be a good peg for a feature on how well the new Government is doing. The second way was to respond to an existing story with an overview feature gathering up all the strands of daily news and TV coverage. The way Newsweek has been covering the Clinton scandal is a good example of this: a kind of "the story so far" approach.

Q: How do you know which news stories to pursue?

A: Deciding which news stories to cover is often a matter of debate among editorial staff. In the end, though, stories have to reflect the interests of the readers. Cruedly put, this means middle-aged middle-class readers are going to want more stories on education or tax policies, while blue collar tabloid readers are going want anything to do with a rock star in a sex scandal. As most newspapers cover the same stories (such as a hurricane, the Presidential scandal, the OJ trial), the trick is deciding what angle best reflects the readership's point of view.

Q: What is your schedule on a work day?

A: Preparing a news story: When I worked on a daily paper the editor held a news conference at 10am at which he went through the list of possible stories. Then you had to go off and research them, look up the cuttings in the newspaper library, get on the phone to get quotes and reactions from people involved, maybe even get out there to the scene of the story. The first deadline was for 5pm. It helps that bigger newspapers have writers who specialize: a full-time Parlimentary reporter, a full-time court reporter and so on. For a weekly paper it could take three weeks to gather all the quotes and facts and figures for a big 3,000-word feature, but we were often researching a number of stories simulaneously.

Q: What steps do you take to make your news more interesting and appealing to the readers?

A: To make stories appeal to readers, the golden rule is to trust your own sense of excitement. Everytime you get a detail that interests you, you should probably use it. It's rather like gossip: feeling like you've found out something that tells what someone's really like. Also everytime you don't understand something about a story, that's a sign for you to take the information and make it simpler and clearer. Unlike literature, you shouldn't have to read a piece of journalism twice to understand it. Clarity is the basic requirement. And that meants facts and figures. My old editor use to throw stories back at reporters saying, "Where's the geography?" He meant the basic information: a person's age, their profession, where they live.

Q: Why did you go into journalism as a career?

A: I wanted to get into journalism because in the UK anyway it's still a profession you can enter at a low level without too many qualifications and work your way up. I'd worked on the school magazine and liked writing, and got my first assignment, writing about youth fashion, through a friend.

Q: How has printed news changed over the course of your career?

A: In the old days, all the London newspapers were in Fleet Street and it was considered a hugely romantic world full of scurrilous rogues and sawdust-strewn pubs and printing presses thundering into the night. By the time I arrived Fleet Street was on its last legs. All the newspapers had moved out of their Dickensian buildings to smart new hi-tech office blocks in the Docklands. But it's still a world where a certain cheerful cynicism prevails. It's not completely corporate and straightlaced.

Q: What is the most interesting part of your job?

A: The most interesting thing about journalism is getting the chance to peer into strange worlds, other lives. You get to interview people you'd never normally met, never mind invite round for a cup of tea. And some famous ones too. I can tell you that Phil Collins is tiny but quite tough; Gina Davis is tall and a bit goofy; and Claire Danes is very sweet and worried that she doesn't use the treadmill in her bedroom often enough.

Q: How long have you been in the field of journalism?

A: I've been in journalism 13 years now. I started aged 20 and worked as a freelancer for four years before getting a staff job as a copy-editor and working my way up from there. Most of my current work is book-reviewing.

Q: What differences do you find between the different news media?

A: News journalism has become so pervasive: TV cameras seem to cover everything and for hours on end. It feels like there are a dozen channels offering live coverage on the smallest, most inconsequential story. Local news is the worst offender for this: "Here we are, live, at this amazing, fast-breaking story about the escaped possum who's sought refuge on the roof of the Compton Taco Bell." At the other end of the scale, papers were getting more intrusive in their reporting on the private lives of celebrities, but since the death Princess Diana that has receeded a little. But not for long, I don't think.

Q: How long does it take you to prepare a news story

A: On the daily paper the deadline for the first edition was around 5pm, so it was a fast day. On the weekly magazine the deadlines were Wednesday and Friday nights, which meant working till 11 at night. The day would start at around 9am reading the papers, comparing stories, seeng which of our rivals had covered what angles on a story, and then at 11am we had a conference with an update on our various stories and pictures. Then it was a long cycle of editing on-screen, picking out photos, looking at the page designs on screen, thinking up headlines and cutting the copy to fit, or (worse still) trying to pad out a story to fit.

Q: Do you use other media as source ideas for news stories?

A: It's essential to keep up with other news media as a source for news. Covering a story is picking at a chicken. The LA Times gets the wing; you get the leg. As for the Enquirer or the Globe I'd hate to think what part of the chicken they wind up with.

Q: What steps would you reccomend or advice would you give to people aspiring to be journalists?

A: For aspiring journalists, the first step if reading a variety of newspapers and magazines and learning how to deconstruct their styles. The second is getting as much experience of writing, copy-editing and lay-outs. If you're really serious then taking a journalism course would be wise, but working on the school and college papers would be just as good.