As soon as Benjamin stepped onto the ground floor, the faint stink of printing ink crept into his nostrils.
Compared with the tidy facade, the interior looked more like a filthy, cluttered temporary warehouse. Newspapers delivered early that morning from the printing house in the Lower Korus District lay piled on tables. Several staff members stood around a long table, sorting outgoing newspapers according to subscription lists and the needs of sales outlets, then passing them to the deliverymen who had been waiting outside the windows.
After spending a moment taking in the chaotic but lively atmosphere, Benjamin climbed the stairs to the second floor, pushed open another door, and entered the office bearing the "Sushit Weekly" sign.
This was finally closer to what Benjamin imagined a newspaper office should look like. More than a dozen desks stood in the large street-facing room, though only half were occupied. Notes and manuscripts lay everywhere, and sample pages sent over by the printing house were pinned to a blackboard by the wall, with typos and printing errors marked in red.
The newspaper did not have many staff. There were only three full-time writers in total earning weekly wages and bonuses, including Benjamin, who had just taken the position. The others, currently away from their desks, were part-time contributors who usually gathered information around taverns, the docks, and City Hall. Only when they found news did they record it and hand it over to the professional writers to follow up.
Besides them, the newspaper had someone responsible for reviewing manuscripts, arranging layouts, and checking proofs. Apart from fitting the news supplied by the writers and other sources into each issue and picking faults in the proofs sent by the printing house, his greatest hobby was urging Benjamin and the others to submit their