"Unfortunately, the word “disciplined” was left out, completely changing the meaning of the headline."
...Discussions of the plan concerned locating copy editing "hubs" in three cities. While I have no idea why those were selected, I would have to think it was because 1) the work needed to reach across time zones, and 2) one needed to draw talented people, but the company wanted to avoid the cost-of-living (and thus wage) disparities of places like Miami and San Jose, or the union contracts...
While I'm sure that economy and "efficiency," particularly in KR's later, desperate days, were the buzzwords, part of the genesis was the belief of some leaders of KR's news division that the selection of national and international news in some of their smaller papers could be quixotic, depending upon who was assigned to do wire that night. There had been an earlier project to provide a common nat-forn lead page to all the smaller papers.
My understanding was that there would be some copy editors kept at the larger papers, at least, who would handle local copy. The major initial thrust had to do with 33 papers, or whatever number KR owned that week, re-editing the same AP story on, oh, fires on Southern California. There was a recognition that asking someone in Fort Worth to know what a "row office" is in Philadelphia was asking too much, at least initially. Of course, the Internet era has led to increased emphasis on local copy, which would have affected the plan.
1. Every paper has a different headline font and caption style. Some papers use subheads. Every paper has a different style for AP credits. Was KR going to have one centralized style for all its papers? If not, then everything has to be rewritten from paper to paper, which is not going to save much work.
2. The Inquirer has its own stylebook and does not always follow AP style. Was this going to be thrown out?
3. How were each plant's bewildering systems of lifts, replates, and makeovers going to be handled? Again, an asterisk in Philadelphia means a diamond somewhere else means...
These are not all gigantic issues in themselves, but throw them all into a pot and it becomes a big pot. It was a bad idea, but if it was going to happen regardless of its being a bad idea, then you had to deal seriously with the operational problems. Every paper has different ad stacks. Every paper has different protocols for handling the dieds page. Every paper uses a different style for graphics. The only real way to achieve efficiencies in production is to produce a largely standardized product from market to market. Most editors wish to retain final control over how their paper looks. If all that was happening was ending up with 95 percent of the same number of copy editors in three locations, because everyone was redoing everything to meet 33 different styles, what was the point? And then there were always issues like, well, in Fort Wayne we own an afternoon paper, and in Philadelphia we own a tabloid...
Senior Justin Jones burlesqued Swift's 18th-century essay "A Modest
Proposal" in the September issue of Smoke Signals, East Coweta High's student
newspaper....
Titling his piece "Another modest proposal," Justin suggested that the euthanasia of low-IQ students could alleviate the world's woes. His essay and a critique of an East Coweta Princess beauty pageant by the paper's managing editor Caitlyn VanOrden spurred a classic example of administrative overkill.
Principal Derek Pitts impounded 500 undistributed copies of Smoke Signals and
told the staff that he wanted more positive and uplifting stories.
According to the article by Maureen Downey, on the editorial board for The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, this is an obstruction of First Amendment rights due to the Principal's lack of reason and educational use in his actions.
A "positive" school newspaper devoted to winning football scores is not only boring, but it doesn't teach teenage journalists critical thinking skills. It doesn't take courage to report that the high school band bought new uniforms. It does to challenge the status quo, and that's what good school newspapers should do.
- "Hypocrisy: It is fair game if a certain politician has consistently voted on public policy issues that appear to undermine the rights or the political agenda of gay and lesbian citizens and if there is evidence that he is gay himself. I actually support a higher threshold. Merely voting a certain way on issues doesn't quite cut it. The only time the hypocrisy argument really works is when an individual has railed against gays and lesbians as a campaign platform. We don't call women who vote against public policy that would be beneficial to other women hypocrites.
- Honesty: If a guy says he's not gay and it turns out that he is, he's a liar and voters deserve to know. Here again, I believe a higher threshold is in order. Has he deceived a spouse? Has he actively created a false impression?
- Infidelity: We don't care if he's gay. We care if he is having affairs and breaking his marriage vows. Then focus on the infidelity, not the sexual orientation. We've cared about philandering ever since the days of Gary Hart.
- Criminal behavior:This is the clearest justification. If a politician is engaged in or charged with behavior that is deemed to be against the law, then we usually care. But go one step further and explain why such behavior is criminal, especially when it involves tapping ones foot in a men's room.
- The impact the rumors/story have on the voters and politics: We don't care whether he's gay. We report on the effect the story has on the political scene. This is a cop-out, a great way to back into a salacious story without taking responsibility for the information at the heart of the story."
More than you need to know about the lives of DC journalists
In case you care: NPR's Andrea Seabrook hasn't worn heels since the day before President Reagan's funeral; Time's Karen Tumulty is a fan of "E! True Hollywood Story"; NPR's Cokie Roberts needlepoints mainly to create gifts for her children and grandchildren; and Washington Times reporter Stephen Dinan has 23 ties featuring Donald Duck.
"Q. What did you think of your New Yorker profile?
A.I think, as most profiles go, two-thirds was accurate. There were so many inaccuracies, including the date of my divorce from my wife, which drove her crazy because she tried to correct it and I tried to correct it twice. It was a little embarrassing to her because it indicated she was divorced after she was remarried. That was symptomatic to a lot of issues. I thought there were a lot of good things in it, but it was written like an arithmetic program: It’s one plus two plus three plus four plus five plus six plus nine plus seven minus two. What it failed to capture in my judgment was my real passion for the work that I do."
"Each of the seven reporters will work from home and travel around their region carrying a small DV camera and editing-enabled laptop. They'll report, write, shoot and edit their pieces, though they also will have support from others at ABC News. Most of the work will be uploaded via broadband to New York, though they will carry a portable satellite dish for the field where broadband isn't available."
"ABC News is in the middle of a transformation into a more digital company -- and one that can expand its reporting. Westin said that with the digital bureaus, it's free to report from more locations, including places where it wouldn't be able to afford to open a full-time bureau.
'It's a source of stories that we wouldn't normally hear from, and it gives us eyes and ears on the ground,' he said."
"Hughes said she heard about the deployment and itched to become a part of it. She acknowledges that she's not as well trained as a 20-year camera veteran but doesn't think it's a drawback.
'We're not going to be in a studio, we're not going to have people do our makeup,' Hughes said. 'The challenge for us on-camera is making sure that we find a great story and report it -- reporting it in a way that people are going to watch.'"
