Editor to reporter ratio

A reporter from our shop just quit for a job at another paper
On the news side we now have 7 reporters and 6 editors. Are we editor heavy and reporter light?
These numbers don't count the sports staff.
We're a 6-day-a-week operation circ around 25,000

Just curious what others might think.

 

Seven reporters and six editors? Unless those six include two or three copy editors, hell yes you're editor-heavy. My direct superior alone has seven reporters working under him. Four per editor is probably ideal.

 

Our sports dept. is six editors, eight full-time writers and five part-time (35-hour) writers who are essentially the same as full-timers.

 

no offense, but it sounds like your shop is the type of place where everyone can receive an editor title.

 

On news side we've got 12 reporters and 6 editors/copy editors. One or two of the editors also write.
In sports, after last year's masacre, we've got 4 staff writers and 5 editors/copy editors, 3 of whom also write.

 

Maybe changing the term to "copy editors" would be apropros. Desk people. And that's a good, not outlandish, number.

I didn't count the SE and ASE in there.

 

Is it the type of place where guys get the "editor" title so the big editor can get them a much-deserved raise? We have some of that in our shop, which is why technically (counting desk people) we have five editors and four reporters. Two of those "editors" are full-time reporters that just have been around forever.

 

Well, if you mean our place, editor means editor. Copy editor. Full time.

Oh, yes. They design, too.

 

Do I have to count the editors that don't do anything of actual value in the production of a newspaper? 'Cause if not, then we have none.

 

At my last paper I had six desk editors over 13 reporters in my department with very little hierarchy and even less communication. I had three different people telling me to go three different ways. Now I share one editor with about 9 other reporters and I couldn't be happier.

 

On sports, we have only three full-timers including me, the SE. No part timers to speak of. On news side, there are four full-time reporters, three copy editors and two editors (news and city), plus the ME, of course.

 

If you look how corporations run other business, there seems to be a premium on having supervisors. I think of a bank. Everyone seems to be a vice president. Meanwhile, there is one teller, five "Next Window Please" signs and a line of people.
I was at a bank recently when one woman says to one of those vice president types, "Can't you hop behind there and help?" He looked like she just asked him to give away his Audi.
I used to be at a paper where there were too many editors and not enough photographers or people to put out the paper. I think the reporter/photographer/production to editor ratio was 2:1 or 3:1 at most. That's ridiculous especially when a couple of the editors were a lot like your appendix. Useless and full of crap.