a school trip to the newspaper ‘thessalia

Primary School of Pteleos, Greece

On December 9th, 2010, we visited the printing house of the local newspaper “Thessalia”. We had the opportunity to see how they print a newspaper and discover some new information.

We had prepared questionnaires and our guide, Ms Hrapalou, answered all our questions. First of all, she said to us that “Thessalia” has been circulating since 1898, but she could not inform us about the number of copies that they sell every day. Secondly, she told us that there are about 30 reporters who work for the newspaper.

Thirdly, she told us that reporters are not the only people needed for a newspaper to be published. There are people who work for the printing of the newspaper, photographers, editors, accountants, the chief editor, the manager, a person who is responsible for the newspaper circulation and the drivers who deliver the copies. Then, we asked her how the reporters know what is new and we found out that they use the internet, the TV and, of course, they go out to see what happens.

In addition, we asked her how they choose the articles which will be in the newspaper. Ms Hrapalou told us that the chief editor is responsible for that. Also, we all wanted to know how much it costs to publish each issue. She did not know the exact cost, but she informed us that they sell the newspaper for 0,50€ only on Mondays and buying the newspaper on one of the rest of the days costs 1,00€.

As our school paper issue takes about two months to be published, we wanted to know how long it takes them to prepare each issue. To our surprise, we discovered that it takes them about 4 hours to prepare an issue! Finally, we asked what kind of problems they face and Ms Hrapalou informed us that one of the biggest and most common problems is when the roll paper is cut in the printing machine during the printing of the newspaper. It is very difficult for them to change it and it takes time.

Ms Hrapalou also showed us old issues of the newspaper and the machines they used to have in the past. Back then it took them a lot of hours to print with these machines!

We really enjoyed this visit to the printing house of the newspaper “Thessalia”. It was fun and we discovered many things. We would like to thank Ms Hrapalou once again for being so nice to us and for explaining everything so well!