POLL: Your best "skill" (for the copy editors/page designers/paginators)

Yeah and you left out agate. I can do that with a blindfold on and my hands tied behind my back.

 

Among the most underrated skills in newspapering ... it can be done half-assed, or it can be done well.

 

I voted slot too, Dye. So there's the two votes for that. I don't think I'm incredibly great at any one thing to say it's my best skill -- but I am very good at organization (and giving orders!) -- so I'd much rather manage the section and delegate pages to people that are better designers than me, or edit copy that are better than me, or do agate that are better than me. ... I think I'm very good at all of those, but there are people who are better, that's all. And I don't mind delegating to people who are better. But if I'm the best, then I'll do that too.

 

Interesting question... and I'm sure there are people at small papers who wish they had the luxury of specializing. But then once you make the leap to a larger paper, how do you choose what to specialize in? Writing? Desk? Design?

My vote was for pagination... I've been using design software since middle school and can whip up any document on just about any program. It's a skill that I'm surprised more people don't have -- they don't teach it well in j-schools and I was especially surprised when I learned how many SIDs who make media guides don't know the ins and outs of graphics programs.

I'll admit I'm not the most creative cabbage in the patch when it comes to page design. But I'm a step ahead of people who don't know how to use the software. What good is an eye-popping design idea if you don't know how to use the tools to create it?

 

There's a question asking for both barrels.

 

"Slot" has different meanings in different places. I'm curious to know what slot is defined as for those who say that's their best skill.

 

I sit back and twiddle my thumbs while designers make cutouts. Then I try to rewrite all of their terribly written, sometimes unfinished headlines in the final 15 minutes, most of the time without having read much of the stories.

Then I fill out a report explaining why we sent the last page after deadline.

The next day, I get to add my take to a correction report stemming from said designers not reading the story, verifying any facts or fixing any errors.

 

You truly are a dickhead. I was asking a serious question. You're probably one of those elephants mentioned in the other thread, likely a guy who talks a good game but can't deliver when it counts. You're pathetic.

 

No, Dye summed it up pretty well.

Except he forgot the part about having to come in two hours earlier than anyone else, sit through meetings that are of no interest to you and no one there is interested in you, or what's in your section that night. Then you go back and figure out which pages to give to which designers so they'll be as out of the way as possible so you can do your job without as much fuss, and then having to go back and do their work for them after they fucked it up.

Those are two key additions. ;D

 

That was a serious answer, other than the thumb twiddling. And we don't have a correction report every day, or someone surely would get fired. (Maybe would get fired? Possibly would get fired?)

Oh, and you suck, pallister.

 

DP,

If you were good at your job, you'd adjust to all that instead of whining and eventually you'd start making deadline. Why not rewrite the headlines in the final 30 minutes. That way you wouldn't have to explain every night why you can't get the section out on time. Maybe if you quit blaming everyone else and picked up the pace yourself, things would run more smoothly. Whaddaya think?

 

Goddamn, you are dense.

"Why not rewrite the headlines in the final 30 minutes." Well, gee, dumbfuck, I'd love to do that. Except that the designers are still busy bumblefucking with the pages, and that's on the nights when we have a good metro editor who moves stories on time. If we have an asshole who holds stories just because he/she can, then things get even more bunched up.

To be fair, idiot, I should answer one part of your question more seriously. I do go in and read the stories in the queue so I can fix the headlines with some intelligence at the end. After all, someone on the desk needs to do that, and it certainly won't be the designer.

But yes, I'm sure the answer is I should work faster. After all, 15-20 minutes is just too long to eyeball the page with the lottery #s, make sure those are right, then proof the front page and all of the jump pages.

You are a complete clueless idiot.