I’m on the speaking circuit these days. Large groups of people with inquisitive minds frequently ask me to enlighten their members with information about my job. It’s quite an honor, really, to be in such demand.

And if the average age of the audience crept above 11, I might have something to brag about.

But it doesn’t, so I won’t.

Instead, I’m going to take a lead from Mrs. Ganey Ryan’s fifth-grade class at Vidalia Upper Elementary and answer a few questions.

The students submitted written questions to me about the newspaper, and they did such a good job I thought some of our older readers might appreciate the answers as well.

Children do, after all, have the luxury of being able to ask questions that adults might feel silly asking.

Here they are:

Q: When was The Natchez Democrat founded and who founded it?

A: James Lambert founded the newspaper in 1865. For a full history you can visit our Web site and click on “About us.”

Q: How do people put ads in the paper?

A: To answer this, I’d first like to explain the difference between and ad and a news story. Often, readers get the two confused. Advertising costs money. It’s a way for business owners, community groups, politicians and anyone else to get the things they want to say in the newspaper. Typically, ads promote something that is for sale. We have two types of advertising — classified and retail. Classified ads include garage sales and lost dogs. Retail ads are larger and usually have photos or images in them.

To get an ad in the paper you can contact our advertising department by phone at 601-445-3625 or you can stop by our office on North Canal Street.

News stories are free. But our staff decides what goes in them and how they are worded.

Q: How do you get reports in the middle of the night?

A: We have newsroom employees that work in the office until a little after midnight each night. They listen to the police scanner for news. Often, people in the community will call in and tell us when news is happening. We appreciate these calls and welcome more of them.

If something happens after midnight it takes a little luck to find out about it. Sometimes community members call our cell phones or home phones. Other times, we just happen upon the news ourselves. Recently, when the Relax Inn caught fire at 1 a.m., photographer Marcus Frazier got to the scene early because his mother saw the fire on her way home from work and called him.

In the mornings, we make calls to local law enforcement officials to ask if anything happened overnight.

Q: How long does it take you to write one story?

A: Writing a story has two major parts. First, our reporters gather the information. Interviewing sources, reading documents and visiting sites can taken anywhere from 30 minutes to several days.

But once they have all the information, most of our reporters spend about 30 minutes physically writing each of their stories.

Q: When someone calls you yelling about something you put in the paper and pointing out your errors, does that hurt your feelings.

A: Yes. We are just as human as the next person. No one likes to be told what they did wrong. But we make as many mistakes as the next person, maybe more; we just happen to print 10,000 copies a day of our errors. Because taking negative phone calls, e-mails and visits is a pretty regular part of our job, we do learn to deal with it. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt our feelings.

And my favorite question: Would you ever put our class in the newspaper?

A: I’ll tell you what I told the children. This is your newspaper. It is about you and for you. We’d love to have your news. If you have a story idea or a news item you can contact me anytime.

Julie Finley is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or julie.finley@natchezdemocrat.com.