The early edition

When you look back at all of the effort hundreds, if not thousands, of hard-working journalists have poured into newspapers once the decline began...you have to wonder if there's ever been a bigger group-effort waste of time in any industry, given that most of those same people were laid off and/or otherwise shown the door, many of the papers have shuttered, and the rest are on life support.

What with the bottom line of newspapers now being nothing but, well, the bottom line, the fact is the hard work to turn quality copy in edition after edition over the years now amounts to nothing.

 

TigerVols, I understand what you are saying, but I don't see what we used to do as a waste, I see what we are doing now as wasteful. I'm realistic enough to know we can't do everything the way I was taught, still I think my frame of reference gives me the advantage of picking my spots that younger journalists simply do not have.

For example, when I interviewed for the Miami job, they explained that at their paper, a heavy emphasis was on managing resources -- space, people, time. A heavy emphasis on copy editing was not so much a matter of aesthetics but of making every inch count. Today when I look at a paper and see wire stories running twice as long as they need to be, I recognize that while that desk might not have the manpower to do more than slap in type, but the real cost is in newsprint. The downsizing of copy editors means you are giving readers half the information in that space and you are a less complete product, thus a less satisying one. Look at a Miami Herald, San Jose Mercury News or Philadelphia Inquirer of the 1980s and you will see many tiny stories carefully edited down and included for their news or entertainment value.

Was the bulldog a waste? Probably. I think in some ways they feared someone like Fort Laud might attempt to establish a PM presence. But for me it was not a waste. I learned so much about how and where to prioritize, to not waste time on what doesn't matter much, and I am still using what I learned there today.

 

Well, Fort Lauderdale HAD a PM presence (Fort Lauderdale News) that merged editorially with the morning Sun-Sentinel in 1983 and ceased publication in 1992.

 

Yeah, I lived just inside the Dade line and could get Fort Laud papers on newsstands but not home delivery. I think the Miami News had a circ in the 40s when it died. Fort Laud did not make the effort it could have.

 

What's been the biggest difference?

Also, hasn't Gannett been planning on making USA Today more of a priority in its local papers for awhile now? I remember years ago there were the rumors that it'd be a 4-8 page section of all the local news wrapped around a USA Today. Seems like that hasn't happened, but I don't see too many Gannett papers up close these days.

 

Most striking thing to me is how uninteresting much of the USAT stuff is. And it really appears to put the squeeze on local content on certain days of the week.

 

That was when this business was fun.

 

Something I have noticed at least twice in the Jackson (Miss.) paper in recent weeks is where stories from the USA Today supplement pages appear elsewhere within the paper in a slightly different form. This past Sunday it was the NASCAR advance. Same story, just with different packaging in two spots.

Not sure how the production process works, I know there's the design center in Nashville, but this seems a fairly basic error to let slip into any edition. I have not idea if if gets corrected for the metro or what.

At the end of the day, I suppose its one of those left hand/right hand things, but that's pretty valuable real estate to be pissing away like that.

 

I once worked at a paper that had separate editions for two states. But the only thing different was the front pages and the designated jump page. More than once, the edition with the smaller circulation (in this case, that one went to a few counties in Indiana) had IU stories in two different places because the IU story warranted placement in both sections but there wasn't anything that warranted taking it off the front.

 

Frank, I know we've crossed a bridge or two in some time warp. I remember that Clipper edition of the Herald and there was a guy whose name is escaping me now but I think it was Walter, who took no bullshit in getting that Clipper edition sports section out and accurate.

 

I never thought I'd say it, but I do miss remakes. It was a piece to the puzzle where editors/designers felt like they were executing the daily edition to the max.