The Daily Mirror newsroom is always a busy place first thing, with reporters pitching stories to their desk heads, and lists being hurriedly compiled of the very best to be presented to the Group Editor in morning conference.

But things were about to get a whole lot busier yesterday morning when a large group of teenagers aged 14-19, from five schools across the country, descended to takes the reigns for the next eight hours.

This was the day the Mirror’s very special Next Gen edition would hit the print works - and there was a lot of interviewing, writing, editing and subbing to be done before then!

11.30am - Morning conference

The NextGen reporters' ideas were presented at conference, along with the day's live news (
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IAN VOGLER/DAILY MIRROR)

It was a crowded conference in Lloyd Embley’s office as 15 youngsters gathered with editors to run through the daily news and features lists.

The Next Gen students pitched their stories to the editors and were encouraged to join in the discussion.

Jake Baynham, 14, said: “It was good. I didn’t realise conference was such a big process and how stressful it was to make sure everything was in the right place. I liked the editors put global warming at the front - that’s a good thing as it’s the most important issue.”

Amelia McDowell, 16, said: “It was a really good experience. Deciding the order was quite good as it allowed us to see how everything comes together.”

The teens learnt how conference can sometimes be a laugh - even if the news is gloomy.

“Conference was a lot different to how I thought it would be.” Saleem Akhtar said. “I imagined it to be quite formal but it was actually light hearted and funny at times. It felt like everybody had common ground and was open and honest about what they wanted.”

Sameer Khan, 16, added: “Conference was really sophisticated. At some points we needed to make sacrifices - for example some articles lost words in order to make room for another story. It’s where all the key decisions were made. Before all this, I thought someone just wrote the stories and sent them to the printer. But it’s a lot more complex than that.”

And Aisha Malik-Smith enjoyed getting on the inside track. “It was exciting to hear all the news and see the pictures first. I felt really trusted.”

1pm - Interview with Prince William

Royal editor Russell Myers helped three teens conduct a text message interview with Prince William (
Image:
IAN VOGLER/DAILY MIRROR)

Three lucky students, Jaspreet Khatkar, 17, Arron Manning-Jack, 14, and Chloe Kennedy, 16, were given the opportunity to interview the Duke of Cambridge .

“I never thought I’d be interviewing the future king,” Arron said. “We asked him about mental health and young people, as that’s a topic we all care about. It’s been such a good opportunity for the youth to get involved. It was great to hear what the duke thought about young people’s mental health.”

Chloe added: “We didn’t find out until the day that we were interviewing Prince William, so it was really exciting and everything came together so quickly.

“It’s given me an insight into how things can work on a newspaper. I can’t believe I interviewed him. The whole experience has been brilliant.”

Later, they joined an episode of the Mirror's royal podcast Pod Save The Queen to talk about the experience.

2pm - Podcast with Head of Politics Jason Beattie

Courtney Bradley was one of a group to record an episode of the Daily Mirror podcast Ayes To The Left with Jason.

Initially quiet and nervous, Courtney quickly relaxed and enjoyed discussing interesting topics in a conversational format.

“We all talked about different topics like racism in football and social media. I talked about youth homelessness and my own experience of it,” she says.

“It was terrifying at first but then I started to feel I had my own voice.

“It really developed my confidence, and I’d like to do it more. It was just being myself and talking about an important topic which I have experienced personally.”

2.30pm - Shadowing journalists in the newsroom

Lucas Bishop joined Graham Hiscott for an interview (
Image:
IAN VOGLER/DAILY MIRROR)

The young reporters spread out across departments, working on news, politics, showbiz and features.

Student Lucas Bishop sat down with Business Editor Graham Hiscott to interview Iceland’s managing editor Richard Walker over the phone.

“I like talking to people but I was worried about making a fool of myself!” he said.

‘I had in mind that an interview would involve really grilling the person but actually this felt much more like a conversation. I had this presumption about journalism and although this was very professional it was quite relaxed. I guess that’s a good way to get the information you need.

“We discussed the climate and pollution and Richard seemed to care about what I was saying, too.”

3pm - Britain Talks with Mirror columnist Paul Routledge

Karina Tautkute and Yasmeen El-Mansoob talked with fellow Yorkshire resident Paul Routledge (
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IAN VOGLER/DAILY MIRROR)

A group sat down with our opinionated Mirror stalwart to discuss the differences in life for today’s younger generation compared to his own.

“I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would,” laughed Yasmeen El-Mansoob.

‘I thought he’d be more stubborn in his views but he was more open-minded than I find some other older people. I feel we actually agreed on more topics than disagreed. It was nice to meet an older person who understands the problems that face young people.”

3.30pm Shadowing editors

Some of the students sat on the news and features desks to see how copy is edited and sent through to page designers and sub-editors.

Amelia McDowell, 16, shadowed features editor Nick Webster.

“I watched him edit feature writer’s copy and he showed me how the process works. He acts as the bridge between the writers and the designers of the pages. It was really interesting to see it all come together - you don’t realise how many people it takes to create the paper, all different stages of it.”

4.30pm - Afternoon conference

Conference is an opportunity for the editorial team to discuss what's going in the paper (
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IAN VOGLER/DAILY MIRROR)

As deadlines approach, afternoon conference was quick as editors discussed with our young team what was going where.

Will Hughes, 15, said: “We ran through the order everything was going in. There had to be some last minute changes due to breaking news - something to do with Brexit . It was a contrast to this morning’s conference, which was over an hour long!”

5.30pm - Page design

Tom Leman, 16, sat down with assistant night editor and page designer Peter Fenton to learn how pages are put together for the newspaper and the final decisions made about the top lines in a feature or news report.

From the headlines, to the words, to the photographs, it was far more intricate than he expected.

“It’s like a jigsaw being put together,” he said.

“Some of the articles just didn’t fit in the space so would need to be cut, Peter had to find the strongest angle in the article and he made that the headline.

"Then the right photos had to be chosen. He worked very quickly and smoothly but there was a lot more to it than I thought.”

6pm - Sub-editors

The team had a busy day (
Image:
IAN VOGLER/DAILY MIRROR)

Shameelah Khan, 16, met the Mirror’s chief sub editor Tim Pedley who taught her the importance of catching typos and polishing reporters' copy.

And, crucially, he explained how subs need to liaise with our lawyers in case there are any legal queries on a story.

“He said it was important to make sure subs find any typos and also they need to speak the lawyers if there are any problems," she said

“It was fascinating to see the process. I then watched a sub-editor cutting down a 500-word story to about 100.”