Working with early deadlines

Deadlines are the only thing that matter, it seems.

The remaining major metro newspaper in my town -- you know, the one that bought the other one and shut it down last May -- couldn't be bothered to adjust press time to include the results of Monday's national championship college football game that was being held IN THE SAME TOWN.

Let me state this again, less obliquely: The Tampa edition of the Tampa Bay Times didn't have a final score of the game being held in Tampa.

If you're not going to wait for something like that, you might as well publish whatever you've got at 6:30 p.m. and let everyone be home in time for dinner and a good night's sleep.

 

I feel fortunate. My deadline is 12:15 a.m. every night except Saturdays when it's 11:15 p.m.

 

This whole story is giving me terrible flashbacks to by last job. Not all in one night, but most of the elements in separate incidents.

 

I'm SMH at whoever thought it was a brilliant idea to have sports switch over on a Friday in the fall.

 

That's funny because somebody sent me an 8-page sports section of the TBT from that same edition. I just glanced through it but I'll give it a more critical look tomorrow. Seemed very "airy" — lots of pictures and not much content.

 

I also faced the same issue in the past. It was too late to reach my daily newspaper at my home. But now it's really follow the deadlines. And come to my at 6 a.m. everyday.

 

"No second edition" is the new money saver at my shop.

When I came here five years ago deadlines were 10:15 (first) and 12:05 (final).

Now it's 10 p.m. One edition. Replates only on Saturday (when first edition is 8:30) and in the rarest of circumstances (local NFL team plays at night, election, etc.).

Apparently there was a ton of waste in stopping the press and restarting it that they insisted re remove from the equation. I kind of like, however, getting home before 10:45 every night.

 

My old shop has its paper printed the next state over and just went to a 9:15 deadline for its only edition. When I started there in 1998, it was an 11:45 p.m. first edition and 12:15 a.m. second edition.

When the bulk of your sports coverage is high school sports, I'm not sure how that benefits anyone.

 

"But I know you guys can do it and do it well. Yeah it's a foreign system and our workforce in sports is down 60 percent, but we don't use that as an excuse right guys?.......Guys?"

 

If you got a version with the final score, it might have been the late edition. I live in Tampa, and the version I saw did not. Which was unfortunate, considering the game was in Tampa. (Of course, there used to be a Tampa newspaper before it was bought out and shut down by the St. Petersburg-based newspaper. But I digress.)

The Times does — or at least did, when Mrs. Reformedhack worked there — have a final edition for downtown St. Petersburg. Its Tampa edition goes/went off the floor about an hour earlier. I hear through others on this board that the edition serving the Times' home county, outside of downtown St. Petersburg, goes off the floor even earlier still.

Thank God there exists a newspaper that operates with its audience in mind. (Yes, yes, I know ...).

 

There have been nights where the paper was being delivered just as I was getting home. Our deadline is 11:45, delivery folks are on the roads around 12:30 or so. An older couple used to have the route that included my house, and the husband asked me one night if I worked at the paper. I said I did and he said it was weird they were dropping off the paper as I was getting home around 1 or so.

 

Yes, it appeared to be the final edition (I assume that's what the ⋆⋆F stands for). Basically this:

C1: a full-page photo cover (at least they had the score)
C2: game coverage
C3-4: general wire
C5: a full-page Maher Chevrolet ad
C6: weather
C7: more game coverage
C8: full page of game photos

Even if it were just a humdrum Monday night, it seemed awfully thin for a metro.