For those at a non-daily

I'm wondering two things.

What are your deadline days like, and what would you like them to be like?

At my last stop, you didn't write on the days you were putting the paper out, unless it was news that happened that day. Basically, you had six other days to write that copy, and this was the day for editing, paginating and proofing.

I have three friends who are all doing internships at various places, and this subject came up. I've only ever been in newsrooms which operated as noted above, and wondered what the crowd here thought of how deadline days should be run.

 

The only weekly I've worked was my college paper and we did basically what you described. The only exceptions were games that were in the afternoon, and even then it depended on who covered that sport. Anything at night, even men's basketball, didn't make it.

 

I spent a year at a twice-weekly and on days when I put the sports section together, I'd pretty much just design the section on those days. Not always, but it made those days a lot easier to not have to worry about finishing a column or feature story.

 

Having worked several weekly gigs ... you'd better have all of your writing all out of the way before strolling in to handle the production day. Best thing is to treat your writing as if you were on a daily, with daily deadlines.

I made a habit of writing a version of my gamers right after games. If I needed to get more quotes or whatever on Monday, then it was just plug-and-play.

 

My first gig was at a weekly, and I'd like to say all I did on production days was production, but for the most part, I had to spend at least that morning catching up on a couple stories from the weekend and putting together breaking news. But I was the only sports person at that shop. That made it more difficult.

 

I'm at a weekly now. Typically, I do most of my catch-up writing on Monday and then production comes Tuesday as we usually send out the section to our press that afternoon. Every so often, we'll hold the section until Wednesday morning, in case there's something big going on Tuesday that we'd like to get in the paper (which comes out Thursday). When that happens, I just leave a hole in the section and fill the hole early Wednesday morning.

For gamers, I usually try to write them as soon as possible after the game, for a few reasons. One, I like timing myself as if I was on a deadline situation and two, I think I write better when it's fresh in my mind.

 

I'm at a biweekly that publishes on Wednesday and Saturday. Our deadline is 11:15 p.m. on Tuesday and Friday. I write, cover games, work with my photos in photoshop and layout the section on those days just like any other day.

 

When I was at a weekly, all my stories had to be filed by the time I arrived Monday morning. That was the day set aside for editing and putting the section together.

I was then off Tuesday and the cycle started again the following day.