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Meetings, meetings, meetings ...

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Den1983, Jul 21, 2009.

  1. Cadet

    Cadet Guest

    What I hate more than meetings are idiots who derail otherwise productive meetings.
     
  2. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    My old joint LOVES its meetings. Loves, loves, loves them. I had a minimum of three a day and often more. Yes, most of them prevented any work from being done. I had a one-on-one on a Friday afternoon once with my Sunday editor to go over the section. I got yelled at for not being at the weekend A1 meeting, where I got yelled at for not having details on my Sunday section. Well, the 1 p.m. meeting to discuss some nonsense delayed my meeting with my Sunday guy, so **** and on and on and on.

    Meet less. Work more.
     
  3. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    The subject of meetings reminds me of my former PM paper, where I was a one-man sports staff.

    My job was basically a split shift. Put paper out in morning, take a few hours off, cover something in afternoon/evening. And my morning deadline was earlier than the rest of the paper's.

    But after the paper was put out, the EE always had a meeting to discuss the next day's paper, etc. So, I would have to leave, come back for the meeting, leave again, and then go to my game hours later.

    Thing is, as the lone sports guy, I basically was in my own world, and my job didn't really affect anyone else's in the newsroom. Yet, the EE wanted me at the meeting, and wanted me to say what I had each day.

    My answer was always the same: "A bunch of local sports stuff."

    After a couple of weeks passed, in which I was putting in 3-4 hours of week in OT, my EE told me to cut down my hours. I told him that the easiest solution would be for me to not show up at the meetings, since it was basically a waste of time.

    He agreed, and I rarely attended a meeting after that. On the rare occasions, it was the subject of considerable joking by the rest of the newsroom staff.
     
  4. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    I used to complain about how much I hated meetings.
    Now I work at a paper that doesn't do them, and our planning is a colossal clusterfuck. It makes everything harder, and you end up putting in twice as much work for a much crappier product.

    In short, I miss meetings :(
     
  5. JackReacher

    JackReacher Well-Known Member

    Speaking only about the two papers I've worked for, budget meetings were pretty much a waste of time. A complete waste of time for the unlucky sports person who was sent.

    The meetings usually revolved around one higher-up telling everyone else what he wanted to see in the next day's paper. Very little back-and-forth. Then again, why try when everything gets shot down?

    I'd like to think meetings were more productive in other newsrooms, although from the responses here, it doesn't seem that way.
     
  6. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    Sorry, I lost you after the second one. What was the rest?
     
  7. JackReacher

    JackReacher Well-Known Member

    Not the good ones. Isn't it their job to have at least a decent attention span?
     
  8. mustangj17

    mustangj17 Active Member

    I estimate I waste one hour every morning in a meeting where I am not needed.

    Another hour on Mondays where I listen to the special sections editor talk about her section to the news editor. I'm not needed there.

    And then about an hour and half on Tuesdays for an editorial department meeting where I literally sit there and doodle on my notebook.

    So somewhere in the ballpark of 7-8 hours per week wasted in meetings. They are the most boring part of my day. I hate them.
     
  9. OnTheRiver

    OnTheRiver Active Member

    When we got our new EE a couple of years ago, one of the first things he did was hack the shit out of our meeting load. I'm a section head, and I spend less than 15 minutes per day in meetings now.

    It's liberating as hell.
     
  10. jlee

    jlee Well-Known Member

    It all depends on how well the communication flows in your office.

    For example, when our rag's copy desk and graphics designer make some design changes, it takes them a week at least to tell the SE and I, who do the sports pages. So yeah, we need our weekly meeting.
     
  11. Den1983

    Den1983 Active Member

    If they have any sincere interest in the meeting, then they'll pry and pry and pry. But, judging by what I've seen and heard, journalists consider meetings a huge waste of time and would rather be serving their attention to stories, reporting, whatever.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 1, 2015
  12. JackReacher

    JackReacher Well-Known Member

    But a lot of times, prying does no good in those meetings. Sometimes it does. Oftentimes, at least in my experiences, it doesn't.

    Either way, it's a journalists job to be attentive.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 1, 2015
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