THE "TIMES" PARLIAMENTARY REPORTS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 318, 7 December 1910, Page 2

THE "TIMES" PARLIAMENTARY REPORTS.

HOW THEY ARE DONE. The "Times" staff in Parliament consists of thirteen reporters, twe summary writers, and a chief. The latter supervises all the arrangements, is responsible for the finished daily reports, be it three columns or thirty, and by his judgment as to the length of speeches he plays an important part in the work of presenting to the country a picture of parliament which shall be proportionate in all its parts. When both Houses are sitting on the same day the "Times" corps is divided, six men being in one House, seven in the other. When only one House is sitting the whole of them are available for that place.

At a quarter to three each afternoon the "Times" staff is gathered in its own room in the House of Commons. On the notice board is posted up a list of the names of the reporters and the times at which they will be expected to take their place in the reporting-box in the gallery. That list depends on a rota varying automatically week by week. At seven minutes to three, when the doors of the gallery are opened to the press, the three members of the "Times" staff take thcii places in their three special ssats. There is the reporter who has to put down the words of the proceedings in shorthand, the summary writer whose duty it is to write a lucid but abbreviated account of the speeches in a running narrative, and the chief who sits with them, watching all that is going on, and regulating whenever he thinks it necessary the work of the reporter.

Up till nine o'clock in the evening each reporter stays exactly fifteen minutes in the box taking shorthand notes of the proceedings. In busy times the reporter will then have at least an hour and a half to transcribe his fifteen minutes' notes before being again called upon to take his place in the gallery. In important periods of debate every word will have to be taken down, and that means the reporter's quarter of an hour of notes will result in threequarters of a column of the "Times.' Leading statesmen like ths Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are always reported verbatim, and other front bench politicians, and occasionally private members also, are reported verbatim, the extent to which their utterances are reproduced depending not merely upon their personal importance, but the importance of the occasion, their particular association with the subject under di'scusa*fca, and the worth of their words.

From nine o'cloctc in the evening the time occupied by each reporter in the box is lessened, because it is necessary at that late hour that the manuscript, or "copy," as it is called, should reach the "Times" office more quickly and in smaller batches. From 9 to 9.30 the reporters work in ten minute turns. From 9.30 to 10.30 in turns of 7.V minutes, ani

from 10.30 onwards in turns of five minutes. Small consignments of copy are thus constantly on the way to the "Times" office, one lot being despatched before the one preceding it has reached Printing House Square

If the Housj sits beyond eleven, three men are selected to stay on, if necessary, throughout the night in order to keep an abbreviated report in progress for the paper.—Fran'.* Dilnot, in the Lonaon "Mail."