Working with a regional design center

They're doing more with less – and working smarter, not harder!

 

What is McClatchey's mission? If it is losing money hand over fist and in debt what's it's goal to start making money? Or is their CEO just fine so no problems. As long as the CEO is making 1.5 mill a year, won't McClatchey be just fine and dandy?

 

One thing I will say for the design hubs, they do a damn fine job of severing your focus from the print product. That wasn't something that killed me, though I'm obviously not in the majority on that one (I've admittedly only been at two stops that had them).

I know there are a lot of drawbacks, but they do help shake off some of the bad habits print forms (addiction to that schedule and routine, dumping in hours to fill holes regardless of news value, etc.). With staffs dwindling, it seems some places get very bent on holding certian print trappings, ones that are more comfortble than valuable.

That said, there often seems to be a gap with design centers. Early on, they let site editors have a lot of final say. This was unfortunately overdone as a lot of site editors liked to meddle and couldn't let go of certian things (this isn't about errors but about certian design elements and tinkering). Several hubs I worked with eventually took full control of the final product, which removed some sense of nuance (fucking agate), and some hubs started taking everything they got and running it, rather than drawing boxes and editing down, as was part of original workflows. That leaves papers in the awkward position of kind of having to not dump in straight online stuff with the expectation it will be shoehorned in.

 

Any editing center that does not follow the instruction, within reason, of an editor of a section is simply akin to being a factory line -- might as well bring in those who are most efficient at a belt that runs and those who work it just make sure the product has not fallen off the belt.

To even think that a designer, especially those moving into a state to keep a job (which is understandable), knows 20 percent of an area and its tradition, its readers, etc., is like saying Hillary Clinton knows the truth when she sees it.

Design centers with no focus allow bad editors to keep their jobs.... if the content decisions are not sitting at the feet of an editor who does not know what he is doing, the train just runs down the track. If design centers aren't made -- again within reason of making deadline -- to do exactly what an editor says needs to be done to his or her section (he or she knows, that is what they get paid for... knowledge and expertise), they should be sent out the door.

All this BS about how if the section is overall a good or bad one comes from being a team is just that... BS. The design part is the end result of the skills of those people and should, for the most part, be their domain (i.e. defer to them on what they know best) but content decisions/story placement... they equally should be slapped if they try to stick their nose too far into that.

You can't make chicken salad out of chicken s---. If the content is bad, the design(ers) can only do so much. Some readers like substance and hate fluff.

Design people ...design. Word people... address content and news judgment. It's a better world in newspapers when the games are not played... and they are because most pubbies: a) don't know a damn thing about design; b) don't know a damn thing about journalism/reporting; c) play a lot of golf and kiss a lot of upper management a-- as a routine of their job, which is almost always to pinch pennies and/or misrepresent the kind of person they really are, as the majority of them are devils in disguise.

That said, it is what it is. Having newspapers is an important part of society... but they probably won't survive because of what they have become. That's really sad.

 

In my market, the papers all have gone to a "web-first" newsroom philosophy that has made the print schedule and routine a thing of the past. If nothing else, it has eliminated a layer or two of needless meetings, with less of a "paralysis by analysis" syndrome in place. Downside is that a lot of unedited content gets on the web. The general philosophy is, "If it's inaccurate or not good, we'll fix it later.

Two complaints I've heard.

The home papers, even now, can be quite meddlesome -- to the point that they request minor tweaks in design and changes in punctuation on deadline (and if it makes the paper late, guess who takes the blame). There's also a tendency to stifle design and headline-writing creativity.

Also ... it's been observed -- accurately -- that editors in the design centers lack institutional knowledge. A good liaison editor with the home paper can help offset that and rise to MVP status. All too often, however, the liaison editors are shlubs who seem to have been dumped into their roles as a form of punishment -- too often sending through copy riddled with errors and cliches and lacking capability to answer even simple questions about content.

 

Our pub center doesn't even have "copy editors" anymore. They're "finishers", there only to make the story, caption and headline fit for print after it has been (allegedly) edited for online by the home newsroom.

"Finishers" are not supposed to spend more than 8 minutes on each story. Sometimes it seems as though 8 seconds are being spent. SEO-friendly online heads often receive only the most minor change (to make them fit, not to make them better for print), and captions are a disaster. 90 percent of them say exactly what is "going on" in the photo, which is fine if it's relevant, but stupid when it isn't (pretty much any non-live caption).

Example:

At the first of the year, struggling to fill the sports section, we used a silly AP story on "2017 predictions".

One of the predictions had something to do with Vladimir Putin winning something for martial arts. So I go into the archive and, voila, find a photo of him participating in some judo from 2012. Cool.

Our caption (unchanged by the finisher, of course) read, "Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin participates . . . "

Yes, he was the PM. From 2008-2012. God forbid somebody take 20 seconds to be creative (and accurate).

 

I feel like some pub centers try to take the most pressure off finishers, which means a lot of shoehorned headlines. I don't even mind the concept of a finsher vs copy editor, though it sometimes exposes the lack of editing chops from a lot of surviving editors. I think editing the original copy should be on the papers, the other stuff, no. That eight minute rule, gross.

The finishers aren't very nimble, as you said, especially with cut lines. I feel like maybe that's a place where a site has to grab the reins, but it's obviously tricky.

 

I like your distaste for pubbies as you call them. One thing about today's current higher ups, they more than ever only care about making sure their own pockets are stuffed with money until the day the industry is declared dead. They truly are devils as you say. Your last couple sentences ... yes, newspapers are doomed to die even though society needs them as a watchdog. Once the print edition is officially declared dead, we'll be left with what I call "awful Websites." These awful Websites will have very few reporters working for them and the only stories written will be clickbait stories as you've never seen before. Local politicians will have it made. Nobody's going to cover meetings and courthouse stuff that keeps them honest. As far as sports, forget high school coverage. None of the newspaper websites will bother with anything but rankings. There will still be the Chicago Tribune top 25 high school teams cause those may get a few clicks. No game stories of high schools or features cause they will get no clicks. There will be coverage of h.s. players who happen to be top college prospects cause college fans will click on them to see if their schools have a chance to get them in recruiting.

 

Fredrick's closer to the truth than I ever wanted him to be. But I'll give him his full due.

 

Ever closer to Skynet and Soylent Green ...

 

Honest question:

Who among us would be any different if we were sitting in the seat of the "higher ups"?

 

A lot of people... or at least a lot of people who, in addition to making that kind of jack, would not step on people day after day as they climb. Instead, they begin to believe the BS that the reason their product is good, etc., is due to some talent they have. The talent -- and the money-makers -- are usually in the newsroom (and of course advertising) and all they (fat cats) are really doing is steering the ship in regards to orders that come from way higher in an organization (in other words, pucker up).

What got lost, not only in newspapers but everyone else, was loyalty. If I had $10 for everytime I have heard a pubbie glow about someone THEY hired (who the rest of us are laughing about in private), I'd be a rich person. Can't count the times have worked beside one of those type folks... and they don't know the basics. And by generally accepted ideas of how skilled someone is, that hire isn't very good. It's often the blind pubby/editor leading the blind... and since they all think "good" is this, their quality meter is way out of whack. And when a less-than-smart pubbie picks a less-than-smart disciple for a key position, the myth of "he or she is talented" continues.

Good money is good money. But good atmospheres, good products, good working conditions, good.. anything... usually starts with human beings who know what they are doing, care about what their people are doing (most don't) and care more about anything but taking cruises and vacations most of us can't afford.

If the cruise ship tips over, the sharks would eat those gobbers first.. they love fat cats with little if any brains... especially the real short ones (5-foot-6 and under) cause they can swallow them with 1 bite.