Byline Quotas/Counts

[Doc Holliday]

2) Eventually he'll lose interest in this nonsense and just stop creating the spreadsheet every week. I sure as heck ain't going to say anything when he does.

So, has he lost interest? Or nearly two years later are you still doing this bullshirt?

 

[Batman]

So, has he lost interest? Or nearly two years later are you still doing this bullshirt?

Oh, he definitely lost interest. He got fired for general suckitude last summer. I thought about calling or texting him with condolences, then remembered all of the bullshirt he put me through and just smiled and let it go. Others he had screwed over were far more gleeful when they heard the news.

Not long after all of that stuff was going on, we finally got a new and competent publisher. Probably not coincidentally, the spreadsheet nonsense stopped a couple of weeks later. The new publisher and the old ME never got along (the ME wanted the publisher job; I like to think my battles with him played some part in him not getting it), and the publisher was looking for an excuse to fire him for months. After about a year, I guess there was finally enough of a paper trail of misery and failed goals to cut ties.
We got a new ME who is wonderful. She actually knows the news business and understands the realities of the job. Very much a "player's coach" who respects and appreciates her employees. Morale in the newsroom has done a 180 from where it was under the old regime. It might be the best I've seen in years.
It's taken a while to get used to liking where I work again. The old, jackass ME left me with some PTSD from that year in heck.

 

[PaperDoll]

Byline counts might actually have done some good in my department where the reporters who get paid the most actually do the least and management looks the other way, while people who work the copy desk full time while writing more stories than said reporters get crapped on by management for not doing enough.

A former colleague who moved to non-newspaper marketing now has to bill a client every 15 minutes, like an attorney does. I'm tempted to suggest something like that in my newsroom -- maybe hourly? -- because it'll show how much (or little) people get done on how many different projects without restricting it to just bylines.

That might also cut down on the rewritten press releases with bylines on them. Can I get a byline for every box score I turn into words for the daily sports roundup? </SID crossthread>