In the Land of The Oz

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He wears a shirt and tie, but Michael Stutchbury's a digger by trade. Not of earth or stone, but of secrets and deals, happenings and plans, of the movements and moments that can change governments, societies and the way people think. It's what journalists can unearth that drives the Australian newspaper's editor; "lifting those flat rocks and seeing what creepy crawlies are under there," as he puts it. Stutchbury sits at a desk buried in paper, blinds drawn, looking out over his newsroom, a large, open-spaced office filled with clocks, cluttered desks, chattering televisions and people hunched intently over computers, fingers punching at keyboards. It's evening outside, and in inner-city Surry Hills young office workers gather in bars, empty energy drink cans litter footpaths, and trains zip past in bursts of sound and light. The Sydney newsroom is fired up too, but its juice isn't caffeine or alcohol: it's news.

"Quick, quick, quick," mutters Chris Dore into the phone. The paper's night editor doesn't need to check the clock to know the evening's first deadline is close. Interruptions are briskly dealt with. Expletives are occasionally uttered with quiet vehemence. "Let's get this show on the road," he says loudly. Around him the paper's most senior production editors - a team known as the backbench - are assessing the last few pieces filed for tomorrow's paper by journalists from Cairns, Canberra or a few desks away, "tasting" them for tone and logic before flicking them over to the news sub-editors. Words must be cut, queried, inserted or rearranged. Headlines must sing and sentences gleam. Or as much as is possible before the deadline pounces. "Page one … page four … page three can go," Dore shouts, as the completed stories are slotted one after another into waiting layouts. At 9.17 p.m., two minutes late, the first edition is off, pages hurtling along their electronic path to the printing plants. The newsroom exhales and slows. But only for a few minutes. Second deadline approaches.

It's around this time that Paul Whittaker's 12-hour day normally finishes. But as the paper's national chief of staff, his mobile phone stays on, and tonight he rings in at about 11.30 p.m., checking with Dore that the start of the British Open on his television means that a picture of Greg Norman the paper's been chasing since late afternoon is on its way. It's a long time since 7 a.m., when Whittaker's daily immersion in news begins: 11 papers online at home over breakfast, perhaps a call from editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell who's out walking the dogs, then another newspaper on the bus into work. Every night he bins a stack of papers and printouts on his way out the door, and every morning the blank layouts of another day's paper are waiting for him. He's ringmaster of the news section, which means filling up to a dozen broadsheet pages, "throwing balls into the air every day, catching them as they come down, and having spots for them all to go in," as Stutchbury describes it. "It's incredible how it happens every day."

Like any successful newsroom, the Australian's must be a mix of scavenger, sage and spectator, and a newspaper which claims the whole continent as its beat needs to understand sleepy Cairns just as well as it does the Canberra political hothouse. In the daily search for the obvious and the obscure, the paper's 60 news journalists, including 10 foreign correspondents, are the forward scouts. Ideas, tip-offs, leads and hunches start rolling in as Whittaker's morning gathers speed. Near him pictorial editor Paul Burston is working out assignments for the paper's 25 photographers around the country, having already sifted through the 1,000 or so images that have come in overnight from agencies around the world: "If you miss a news story, you're stuffed." When Mitchell took over in late 2002 as the paper's editor-in-chief, he promised a renewed focus on breaking important stories. "We have to break stories, get them right, and get them on time," says investigative journalist Whittaker, who followed his former editor from Brisbane's Courier Mail to the broadsheet six months ago. The race to trump rivals - with the fresh angle, the killer picture, the exclusive interview - absorbs the national daily as it does every other major media outlet. Which is why Whittaker's on the phone telling a journalist, "failure's not an option. We have to get this picture any which way." The reporter's in Far North Queensland, sent to cover the story of three children who survived a boat capsizing in the Torres Strait by swimming 3 km to an island through dangerous waters. Whittaker's only half-joking when he reminds the reporter how crucial a photo of the island is: "If you can't get a boat there you'll have to swim." The newsdesk gets the photo, and the copy, filed painstakingly by payphone, on time. It's one puzzle piece in a day dictated by deadlines. Whit-taker's soon hurrying to meet the first of the day: 11 a.m. news conference. The media likes pointing the spotlight but doesn't court the same attention, and few see inside the conferences that hatch each day's game plan. There, sitting side by side, Stutchbury and Mitchell quiz the editors of the sport, business, arts and world pages on their strongest yarns. Then Whittaker runs through a list of 36 news stories offered by bureau chiefs around the country. Some stories will crash during the day, others will blossom and some will need more time. And one may become the splash, the main page-one news story, which is at the heart of each day's urgency. Conversation rattles around the table. Someone's heard unfavorable comments from sources about Labor's standing among local Israelis. Has party leader Mark Latham alienated the influential Jewish community? Whittaker's asked to get a journalist to check it out. What about a response to the federal government's suggestion that it might have to ship radioactive waste offshore because South Australian premier Mike Rann opposes plans for a dump there? "Rann deserves a pasting," is the verdict. It's decided to put more journalists onto the possible outbreak of citrus disease in Queensland. "Could be the biggest disaster in Australian rural history," says Mitchell. But the best contender for the splash is shaping up as a story on Australia's Free Trade Agreement with the U.S., championed by the paper and about to face the U.S. Senate. The Canberra bureau suspects a growing acceptance within Labor ranks of the key bilateral deal, despite Latham's reluctance to publicly support it, and Mitchell's keen to confirm this. "It's not about Mark, it's not about supporting Howard, it's about policy ideas," he insists. The story, it's agreed, will be vigorously chased. Washington correspondent Roy Eccleston is called, late at night his time, and asked to write a piece on the FTA vote - straight away. The clock ticks on.