COVERING Election Day

Nobody who has an understanding of what goes on in news as well as sports.

 

A lion's share of the A1 centerpieces ARE in place with the help of a designer by 6 p.m.

 

How much experience do you have designing news pages?

 

Harrower was, at the same, one of the best and worst things to ever happen to newspaper design.

Amazing how many of his principles are still in use and seem to growing given the design hubs and standardized design that is so common. But it destroyed the distinctiveness of local papers that had design quirks.

I got an old school professor in college who preached sketching pages out before you sat down. As I've gotten older in the biz, I've become a huge fan of templated pages where I can just slap shit in and go.

 

More all the time. More than I used to. I'm not saying they're not doing technically superior pages in some cases.

And thank you. I need to own that comment.

 

First of all, no paper worth a shit will regularly have A1 centerpieces in place by 6. Secondly, it doesn't matter how early you may have the elements. Any worthwhile CP design will include day-of discussions with editors and/or peers as well as plenty of trial and error on the designer's part. In many ways, getting your copy and art on deadline makes it EASIER.

Finally, the person who says that sports is inherently more challenging is as stupid as the person who says news is inherently more challenging. Anyone with any significant experience doing both understands the relative challenges and knows that if something seems too easy, you're not trying hard enough.

 

Here ya go, Baron.

I just finished what is a fairly typical night designing the Metro section.

7 pages, 20 stories.

Because of story shuffling between A1 and Metro, the budget wasn't even set until almost 6. Never mind all the copy being in. Other additional delays early on included the section being dropped down two pages before the shuffling, which then prompted a rebooking and the discovery that we needed those pages back. By the way, because EVERY SINGLE inch of copy is local and can't be cut, that process is a tad time-consuming because it consists of going through the entire budget, tracking the lengths of the stories (half of which aren't in and thus need to be guesstimated through conversations with writers and editors) and making sure exactly how much space is needed and what goes where (again). In Sports, much of the copy is wires, so those stories and roundups can be cut as needed to make things fit whatever way you want. Booking a section (and making inevitable adjustments on the fly) is infinitely more difficult in news.

Once that all got straightened out, I had a total of three stories ready to place on a page by 6 p.m. Over the next four-plus hours -- up to the very last minute of deadline -- I was placing stories, designing pages, communicating with editors and the copy desk and making dozens of proofs and related final corrections.

I got out of my chair twice in five hours -- once to go to the bathroom and once to grab a couple snacks from the company cafe because I didn't have time for dinner.

I have plenty more "anecdotes" like those if you're interested.

 

So you had some delays that weren't your fault, but got pages booked on the fly, at what, 6 p.m.? Is that normal for your paper, or unusual. Because if it's normal for your paper, then your managers really need to get on the ball. Where I am, the news budget is mostly done by 3, maybe a change or two around 4, and a rare change after that with breaking news.

Booking on the fly? So what? Sports books on the fly all the time. Try booking on the fly when a local basketball game gets delayed because the JV game goes to overtime and the refs decide to call every touch a foul, having to find extra space for more roundups because a whole bunch of snowed-out games were played that night (without the school's notification of a schedule change, crossthread), dealing with local freelancer who, when told to write 10 inches or 400 words, sends his 800-word story in and calls, saying, "Well, I went a little long, hope it's OK with you" and changing up the front page because area pro team just decided to trade for a major star.

Oh, and that's done an hour, hour and a half before deadline. Not four-plus hours. Happens in sports quite frequently.

As for me, my load was only slightly less than yours tonight. 6 pages, 19 stories, about half of them wire. And it's considered a quiet night, because most local teams are in the playoffs this weekend, so they were off. And I managed to eat my dinner at my desk and take a few bathroom breaks. Oh, and I also posted multiple web updates.

 

I've done all those things, Baron. Many times over. Iam very familiar with the pressures on both sides. You wanted examples of what news siders deal with on a daily basis. I gave you a very detailed one. But talking to you is like trying to teach a dog Mandarin.

Good luck getting the respect you are too ignorant and stubborn to give to others who work as hard (or harder) than you do.

 

This newspaper design discussion is just so quaint.

 

Yeah, we know how that makes your colon churn. Just a benefit.

 

I understand that this banter means something on some level for certain individuals.

But it's not really worth the whole "What have you done?! Have you DESIGNED NEWS?!?!" aspect. I mean, who cares?

For that matter, who cares about newsroom pizza? Yelling about the same old issues, in the same old ways. What's the point?