Copy desk meeting today

From Mark T.,


I have instructed Kerry to call together a copy desk meeting today to address who will do what tasks to get us through the first quarter. We'll be calling on all able-bodied page proofers and page designers to ensure we're adequately staffed each day.

I propose we meet at 5 p.m.

Age in obituaries

We had a glitch in a Stevens Point obituary that was caught before publication. It said the woman was 89 years old when she died, but she was born in 1922. That means he was 86 years old when she died.

I assume most, if not all, Macs on the copy desk have a calculator on the dashboard. It makes sense to do the math before an obituary runs.

In case you didn't know ...

I've found the following Web site, Noble Desktop, http://www.nobledesktop.com/shortcuts-indesigncs2-mac.html, that show shortcuts for InDesign. I'm guessing we all know some of the shortcuts, but not all of them.
The Web site also has links that lead you to other Adobe programs.

Maintaining quality control

Serious topic here.

In light of the recent staff furloughs, in combination with Elizabeth's current maternity leave, I feel strongly that the copy desk will need some serious help in the coming weeks. Looking at the schedule as it now stands, I am reminded of when Ben Schultz quit right before the holiday vacation season started in December 2007 and how it threw the scheduling into disarray. We have almost constantly only 3 people on staff nearly every day, with only one day in the next four weeks where we'll have four people on staff. Suffice to say this is going to be a very exhausting system that I worry is going to burn out copy editors in the long run.

Even the reduction in the newshole isn't a significant help to us, because there are no fewer essential pages (covers, 3As, region, and obituary pages). These all still need to be paginated and proofed every day, and pagination takes a good chunk of time.

Now, scheduling is something we can't really change right now, it's just something we are going to have to live with. But I think there are ways we can maintain our level of quality control in these rough times without adding staff or hours, and I want to get some dialogue going on how we can do this.

One idea I have — and one that will require cooperation from the editors at all four sites — is for copy editors to get stories on Night Desk as soon as we can get them, as in edited by site editors as soon as can be done. When we can get pagination done earlier, we have more time for proofing, but when we're waiting for stories that could've been done sooner, it leads to a mad dash at the end of the night, and that's when easy mistakes get made.

Any further ideas? If we ignore the problem, we're just going to end up with an exorbitant amount of overtime on our hands, in which case we may as well have not furloughed at all. And I mean real, concrete ideas, not just "work smarter, not harder."

How is it going?

We've now gone a full week with the reduced newshole and the managing editors determining what goes where. Any feedback on what can be improved or streamlined?

Elizabeth sent an e-mail to me last night that lamented a lack of art for Rapids stories in today's edition. A standalone on 1A left the Rapids' site a little short on content for the carousel on our homepage.She asked in the e-mail, "Are there backup carousel items we should use in situations like this?"

The answer is, "Yes."

A shortage like this can be addressed in two ways.

First, you can search for any number of evergreen items I've created for the carousel in Saxotech. If you search under Category: All and Keyword: frontpagecarousel05 (or 08, 09 or 10), you'll generate a list that will include items like momslikeme.com, Cozi or user galleries. You can copy these files into the desired date and you should be set.

You also could find a stock photo at www.clipart.com. This only works with certain stories, but it is an option. If you don't have the login information for this site (and it comes in handy for more than carousels, think 1A promos), I've included it below.

Here is the organization, username and password for www.specdept.com:
gannett
cwgroup
7711

Once you've logged in, click on the clipart.com link. You can then download photos fit for online (or small in print).

Finally, just as it is your job to make sure all the pages are clean at the end of the night, it's my job to make sure all four sites are clean first thing in the morning. If you are stuck with any online issue, let me know and I'll try to correct things in the morning (is it really morning if it is still dark?).

Good question Liz.

— Brian O.

Happy Januaury

Having come back from vacation recently and looking through recent issues to understand how we're filling the smaller newshole, I noticed that every single page of the A section of January 1's Daily Tribune read "Januaury" in the folio info, including news, life pages, and the opinion page. It's a bit of a grievous oversight, but one that is easily corrected. If it's noticed early in the day, don't be shy about speaking up to get the template changed, and if it's later in the day, be vigilant about making sure every page that needs to be resent with the correct info is, well before deadline.