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Do you have a weekly byline minimum?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by DemoChristian, Apr 16, 2008.

  1. I hate being assigned stories if they're not on my beat.

    Obviously it's necessary at times, especially now that staffs are smaller, but in no way do I want to be assigned something by a group of editors who've been sitting around in a meeting room all morning daydreaming about what they want on the front page. It's like chasing a unicorn.

    I beat the bushes, find something good and make it known so I can be left alone to work on my beat, and hopefully get it on the front page.
     
  2. ColbertNation

    ColbertNation Member

    I would agree, but I was a transplant and barely knew the area. A few more assignments a week would have been nice until I was able to get my bearings.
     
  3. Me too.

    Byline minimums are bullshit.
     
  4. To hell with byline counts. I write stories that I think are worthy of writing. If somebody doesn't like it, they can fire me. I don't give a shit. I'm not putting my byline on some shit just to meet some fucking quota.
     
  5. lono

    lono Active Member

    I just went back and added it all up: I wrote 15,271 words last week.

    No wonder I'm tired.
     
  6. Barsuk

    Barsuk Active Member

    Never worked somewhere with a byline minimum, and I hope I never do. The whole concept is flawed, because it's begging people to write stories about non-stories. If nothing newsworthy is happening on your beat, but you still have to get 10 bylines, there are going to be some mighty boring stories in the paper that week.
     
  7. I don't see the point in having a weekly minimum. Everyone is going to have a slow week.

    If there's a weekly minimum, you spend that week looking for and turning in crap stories. If not, you spend that time working on an enterprise story you hopefully have set aside.
     
  8. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

    Three of the four papers I've worked at didn't count bylines, but the first one I worked at wanted 15 bylines per week. So the sports editor's solution was to tell me and the other writer that if we took a call-in or re-wrote a press release, put a byline on it. Probably not the most ethical thing to do, but it got the managing editor off our asses.

    The problem with bylines counts as it relates to sports is that the number varies so much during the year. During June and July, I might have 4-5 a week if I'm lucky, during football season, 20-25.
     
  9. -Scoop-

    -Scoop- Member

    I've been at three shops and I've never had a byline minimum. Then again, as a reporter and editor, we always had no issues turning in stuff. At my current shop where I'm SE, I write at least six stories per week. My two full-time staffers write at least six as well, though they do more than their share of desk work as well, taking calls and writing up round-ups.
     
  10. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Here's a thought about why byline minimums are poor policy. You could get a reporter to write the minimum, then, when there's another story available, the reporter could say, "Sorry, I already did my minimum.''
     
  11. Um, yeah. It's a minimum. Not a maximum.
     
  12. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    By establishing a minimum, the paper is saying that this is the least that you have to do to earn your pay. Why should a reporter (besides professional pride in their work), work more than the minimum if the paper is going to decree that they must provide a certain amount of bylines without the context of what those bylines mean. As others have said, there are busy weeks and slow weeks. If a paper wants to establish a minimum, then they should establish a maximum too.

    Of course, I am talking about the newspaper industry here, where logic and reason don't always mix.
     
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