Lets talk deadlines.
They are one of the biggest factors we face in this industry, and recently it seems that people are disregarding them either out of ignorance or because of work flow problems. Copy editors plan their whole day around deadlines and making deadline is one of our top priorities (accuracy of course being No. 1).
Our end of the night deadlines are pretty much set. WDH color 11 p.m., black midnight. WRT color 11:30; black 12:30. SPJ color 12:30, Black 1:30, MNH color 1:30, black 2:30. On Saturdays we're expected to have everything out the door by 10 p.m. But what about deadlines during the day? Do we have them? Is everyone aware of when they are?
For example, is there a deadline for Lifestyle content to be handed to the copy desk? Go! content? Editorial content? Everest Herald content? What about dayside budgets? There should be deadlines for all of this and everyone should know when they are.
What about for nightside budgets? Or non-late breaking night-side content to be given to the desk? Obits/records? (For the record, as far as I know, the deadline for records page content to be given to the desk is 5 p.m.)
I don't think any of these have established times, although they should, and I think this is a good place to discuss and decide when these should be. If they do have deadlines, I for one, don't know about them, which indicates that others probably don't either.
Obviously, this is a business that changes minute to minute and bunny plate to bunny plate, and sometimes the best laid plans are changed in an instant. But, I think it behooves us to put some times in place to help make ourselves more efficient on those days when bridges aren't collapsing around us.
So what does everyone think? where exactly is the end of the line?
--Kristy
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4 comments:
A noble quest. I'm pleased you worked both bunny plate and behooves into your post.
Seriously, deadlines for all you mention would be great, but you'll need buy-in from the city and managing editors.
The day desk had deadlines once upon a time so we could get to work when we came in for the day. Having budgets and copy ready by 10 a.m. isn't unreasonable. Opinion page copy should be ready by noon. If an editor still is writing an opinion that could hold until say 3.
Records by 5 is reasonable, but I believe two of the papers have an obit deadline of 5. Those would need to be changed.
At one time, we had a deadline for copy written during the day (not a night meeting or breaking news). I think it was 4.
You can tell these deadlines weren't hard and fast. They were suggestions to help us get our jobs done (at the sites and on the desk). Obviously, copy editors want copy earlier. Reporters and editors want to file later, to ensure they've got everything (or as much as possible). We need to meet in the middle.
Suggestions from others?
The best-met deadlines we've ever had were for copy for advanced pages, such as features, Opinion and obits.
I think the deadlines mentioned by Mystique for those pages are reasonable. I'll see about having Brian and Kerry implement/clarify and enforce those deadlines.
The "hard news" copy deadlines always have been hard to meet — they get bent and twisted around the events of the day so much that eventually they are rendered useless, at least psychologically. It's not willful disobedience as much as it's the reality of reporting with a sense of urgency on developing news.
That said, I think it's reasonable for all but late reporters' copy to get a first line edit by 6 p.m. To get that done, line editors would need to force reporters to get some stories in earlier in the day so they're not all coming in near the 6 p.m. deadline.
4 p.m. is unrealistic, in my opinion. Too much is still going on at that point in the reporting/planning/editing process.
I'd like to hear from others on this ...
— Mark T.
SPJ requires funeral homes to get obits to us by 5 p.m. so a 5 p.m. deadline for us to have them to the copy desk would conflict.
Wausau recently changed their obit deadline so the funeral homes have to get the obits to us by 4:30. MNH has a deadline of 4 p.m., I think. Maybe we should adopt this idea in the other two papers?
From a night perspective, I'd really like to see a 'deadline' for content that's written earlier in the day to be over to us. I know this won't always work, but it seems that quite often lately we've been sitting around waiting for stories to be moved to night desk at 9 p.m. that haven't been touched since 3 p.m.
I like the 6 p.m. idea, what do others think?
--Kristy
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