WHILE a most important part of a newsmagazine's job is done in the quiet offices of writers and editors, there is no substitute for reporters who get all there is to get at the scene where news is breaking. Some of TIME's reporters at work on last week's big stories provided some striking examples:

P:At Washington's National Airport one morning at 5:20, a lone reporter walked out onto the field to greet Vice President Richard Nixon returning from his secret meeting in New York with Nelson Rockefeller. The reporter: Washington Correspondent Harold B. ("Burt") Meyers, whose assignment is Richard Nixon.

P:In the captain's cabin of the U.S.S. Observation Island off Cape Canaveral one afternoon, when an exultant Rear Admiral William Raborn Jr. congratulated his skippers on the first successful firing of a Polaris missile from a submerged submarine, only one newsman was present. He was Miami Bureau Chief William Shelton, one of only two reporters who have covered every major missile shot in the Cape's history.

P:In the flaming Congo, Johannesburg Correspondent Lee Griggs questioned Premier Patrice Lumumba just before he left for the U.S.

P:At New York's International Airport, when Lumumba and self-styled Congo Developer Louis Detwiler arrived early one morning, they were met by a probing team made up of Contributing Editor Jerrold L. Schecter, New York Correspondent Serrell Hillman and Researcher Gayle Williams.

While TIME is not necessarily a publication of split-minute deadlines or old-fashioned scoops, this new-fashioned in-depth reporting helps the editors attain the quality that TIME readers expect.

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