L.A. Times better off with early deadline

Alan Mutter makes a really interesting case that the 5:25 p.m. off-the-floor deadline for the L.A. Times A section has actually improved things:

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2010/02/maybe-others-should-copy-early-lat.html

He says that because they're doing this, they're forced to find relevant analysis and exclusive offerings that people can't find elsewhere, in much more updated form (the traditional "breaking news" model of a front page).

Plus, they have their separate late news section.

He has some caveats -- what happens for an "end of the world" type story -- but it's an interesting notion.

 

Get back to me when the Big One hits LA. Then we'll see how well that deadline works.

 

Or the Olympics. Or the major league baseball season. or an overtime Lakers playoff game.

 

It's A section only. None of the above are A section fare.

 

Sunday's paper was missing articles on the Anaheim Ducks (7 p.m. local start) and LA Kings (7:30 p.m.).
Kings feature directed readers to the Web Site for gamer.
Nothing at all of Ducks game.

 

Terrible.

Want a magazine parallel? Newsweek, which has gone all
"we're the preachy elite, and we'
re never f'n wrong, and Woodrow Wilson was The Man", looking to answer the Big Questions while
finessing a lot of the day-to-day. Gag me.
Meacham should get on the bus
for the dog track, and never return. Virtually unreadable, now.

 

How about when the Angels, Dodgers or Lakers win a League Championship? I would contend that would be A section worthy.

 

Some Sunday home editions had stories on the Ducks and Kings games.

 

DING!

 

Worthy but not mandatory.

A "traditional" (looking, anyway) paper like the LAT can always simply say "no sports on our front news page" as its rule.

But as long as sports has regular deadlines, nothing is really getting left out of the print edition.