More deadline issues

OK, so corporate has discovered it can save $500 dollars every night it has us go a half-hour early. That means, at their discretion, our deadline is 9:20 rather than 9:50. We're almost through the fall season, so I'm not too worried about that.

My concern is the winter season when we have high school basketball games that start anywhere between 7:45 and 8 p.m.

What I want is to be able to have content relevant to the game (or the teams playing in the game) in the next day's paper. I'm not a fan of partial gamers -- in fact, I can't think of anything less useful than a partial gamer. But my EE is going to ask me about my plans for the winter season in the very near future, and I want to be able to present her with some ideas.

My cupboard isn't bare; I have some thoughts, but I'm not opposed to picking other peoples' brains, so feel free to offer me some ideas that I can steal.

 

Tell your EE that your plan is to try to come up with ideas to scrape up $500 a night -- maybe a bake sale, internet phishing scam or live sex acts -- so that you can bribe corporate to get news in the paper.

 

How are you even getting high school football in with that deadline? Basketball -- if its anything like my area, you can easily get JVs and the girls varsity in, but the boys varsity? Unless you get really lucky, forget it ...

 

Just put everything in the paper two days after it's happened. That is what my shop has had to do for everything that's not football this year.

 

Just do previews and features and run scores only? Not ideal, but maybe it's the most bang for your buck knowing you're going to miss gamers or have coverage that is lacking.

 

Football has been an adventure. We've been at 9:50 on Fridays, and just made it in under the wire most weeks (that is when we didn't totally blow it by 20 minutes).

The problem with basketball here is that JV plays first, and then Varsity. So, a game scheduled for tipoff at 7 likely doesn't actually start until 7:30/7:45. If the games were to start on time, we could do it. If they get pushed back even a little bit, we're cooked.

That's why I'm trying to come up with a way to get relevant content in the paper that doesn't require a game score. The problem with that is I don't want my writers to have to write a separate feature story ahead of time for every single game they cover.

It makes my head spin, to be quite honest.

 

Why don't you suggest a compromise? Exclude HS basketball nights (Tuesday/Friday in our area) from the early deadline nights, and see if that will fly. Meeting management more than halfway might be a good move on your part. Your company might also lose more than $500 in sales with no game stories in the next day's paper.

 

You're either going with partials or you're going to have your stories in the paper a day late. That was what I told my publisher when she suggested a 10 p.m. deadline every night. She then decided on 11 p.m.

 

You have football games that end that early? When do they start?

 

some leagues play in the afternoons for football...I'm guessing that's the case here.

Yes, do more previews (at least of the big games), toss in more features and run gamers two days late. Not ideal for the gamers, but once readers learn to expect that lag it will be okay.

 

run features and previews with a "for game results, go to our website" tease

 

So to save the company money, the writers are supposed to do extra previews and features for the print edition as well as gamers for the website?

Yeah, f*** that.

They want to save money, let 'em. But decisions have consequences. Run the two-day-old gamers, and forward the complaint calls to the EE. If the management isn't willing to provide the readers with a quality product, why should the staff bend over backward to fill the gap?

I guarantee you the news department isn't wringing its hands about how to cover city council meetings. They'll run 'em two days late, end of.