Any tips for hitting new deadline?

My paper just changed its deadline from 11:15 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. Has anyone else gone through this? If so, please post tips on becoming more efficient (writing, interviewing, etc...). All advice is appreciated.

 

File at the end of the third quarter. Run a correction the next day with the final score.

 

Write letters to ESPN, NBC, CBS, FOX, etc. and tell them to move the game time to all day games for every sport.

 

Write running and file at every break (quarter, halftime, end of period, etc.) File right after and file a later version with quotes as, or if, time allows.
Perhaps get a pregame feature written, file before the game and drop a score into the lead or second paragraph.

 

Tell your publisher he'll have to buy wireless laptops for all your writers and stringers, so they can file directly from game sites the second games get over. Interviews, quotes? Forget it. No time.

Tell him you have a 50-50 shot to get in national events which start at 7 p.m. Eastern time, but no chance in hell to get anything later.

Tell him you can look forward to getting absolutely no phone reports from most prep events, since your phone cutoff time is going to have to be set no later than 9:45, most coaches don't get out of the locker room until then, and most won't call the next day to report day-old scores.

Tell him you're really sorry about all this, you wish you could tell him something different, but you're not God and you can't alter the space-time continuum, so if he is dead-set on a 10:15 p.m. deadline, that's how it's going to be.

 

Look for a new job.

 

We did the same thing a year or so ago. Saturday night 10:15 deadline. Just write a running gamer with no quotes and if you make deadline, you make deadline. If you don't, you can't control that the game wasn't over when deadline hit. You can always write a filler or perhaps even get a quote or two before the game if you can find something that will hold up. The couple times I've missed deadline, they've had a filler story ready to go because there's nothing you can do about it.

 

Pretend you're a PM. Come in early, do the pages, and go get drunk. Run that night's stories the next day. Lather, rinse, repeat.

A week of answering the phone calls you forward to him will change the publisher's mind.

 

What time zone are you in? If you are on the Left Coast then you can still fill your paper with national news. If you are on the Least Coast then you are screwed.

 

I'm in the Bay area, so it's no problem with national stories. It's the prep and college coverage I'm concerned about.

 

With the changeover in our production system our Friday night deadline is now 10:15. Fortunately we only cover 2-3 (sometimes 4) high school football games on a Friday night. Here's how we've been doing it. Have the writers call at halftime and dictate a good 5-6 inches worth of running. At the end of the game call with the final score and another few graphs as a top. That way we have something to get in the paper for first. Then they have 30 minutes to get back to the office and rework the story for second edition or 60 minutes for the final edition.