1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Gannett's newest "innovation"

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by murciélago, Jul 5, 2007.

  1. boots

    boots New Member

    Dude, get a grip. This isn't about me. It's about your ability to do the job.
     
  2. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    I wouldn't presume to.

    My take on it is, sometimes, liking where you're at can be more important than the bullshit going on inside the office.
     
  3. Born to Run

    Born to Run Member

    Nowhere in here has murcielago threatened to quit or talked about being miserable in his job.
    Any journalist would feel like a two-byline-a-day quota diminishes the kind and quality of work they can produce.
    Why? Because it does.
    Dude, get a grip, boots.
     
  4. boots

    boots New Member

    Again, the choice is yours. Either produce or quit. Either way the paper will still come out.
     
  5. Moot points, boots.
     
  6. forever_town

    forever_town Well-Known Member

    When I came on board at my shop, the publisher and CEO told me to enforce a "five stories a week" edict at a community weekly. When we started getting a lot of interns, I unofficially backed off the edict because I'd rather have quality over quantity.

    Of course, I have a different animal on my hands, but the essentials are still the same. Personally, I'd only pull sports reporters for news if I have my news reporters assigned to cover other stuff and I have both the space and the need to cover something.

    I'd rather have my full-time reporters filing three stories a week that are all quality than five so-so pieces that suffer from lack of time to develop each one.
     
  7. boots

    boots New Member

    Moot is complaining. You have a job to do. Just do it until you find something better.
     
  8. Who is complaining?
     
  9. fletch b. fletch

    fletch b. fletch New Member

    Personally, I would welcome a byline count at my paper because the sports reporters have BY FAR the most of any department in the newsroom. If they want to count our bylines, I say, go for it because sports will kick the crap out of any other department. I once did a byline count against one news writer who is pretty productive, and 8 of 10 fulltime sports writers had more bylines (some had twice as many). I then compared it to some features and business writers and it was a freaking joke. No one at my paper has ever mentioned byline quotas. But if they did, the only ones who wouldn't get fired would be sports writers and maybe a few news writers.

    So, to the original poster, I would compare how many bylines you have with writers in other departments. If you have a lot more, I would tell the editor to get some of the other departments to be more productive.
     
  10. I think that's an outstanding idea. We'll count bylines at year's end and see who's ahead. I know the answer to that question, and the news-side people won't like it.
     
  11. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    This action won't end well....
     
  12. budcrew08

    budcrew08 Active Member

    Just to play devil's advocate here, but sportswriters, at least for a small paper during prep seasons, can write at least one gamer, a sidebar, a column just about every day. Features just about every week or 10 days.
    News side people, again, at least in a smaller shop, don't have meetings every day. Sometimes just nothing is going on.
    Not trying to defend news or sports or anything, just continuing the discussion.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page