Karohemd's World

What do you call the different departments (politics, economy, sports etc.) of a newspaper organisation (not the physical newspaper)?
In German it's the rather obscure "Ressort".

ETA: Thanks to all who commented, they're called desks.

I scored 19/20 in the English test on the BBC News website. I got one question wrong because I was unsure of the difference between simile and metaphor. I have to admit that I answered one question by eliminating the wrong options as I didn't know the word in question, though.

I'm always getting confused with "gran" and "nan". Are the two synonymous or is one the mother's and the other the father's mother?