The early edition

Having two editions at a PM taught me a couple of things - how important it is to commit to your first good idea when on deadline and to always have a Plan B for when something else happens.

 

And usually, Plan B works out pretty well.

 

But I don't think it's a fairly basic error. I think they just don't KNOW it's in there twice because they are being put together in different places. I once saw the same basic item (I think was auto racing) that appeared THREE times in the Orlando paper. Orlando needs an autos roundup, being so close to Daytona, so the item was in the roundup on one page, then it was a sentence in the briefs package likely compiled elsewhere, then it was a broken-out brief right next to the briefs package (not sure how this happened on the same page, but it certainly did). Orlando routinely repeats the golf results in the briefs even though, being a big golf town, there is always a golf roundup. But the other papers in the chain don't care about golf, so they put it in briefs and that is compiled elsewhere. This is biggest problem with the design/editing hubs.

 

Tribune compiles a briefs "module" in Chicago that is used by all its papers. You theoretically can edit it to take out duplication if you have something running elsewhere in your section, but it is strongly discouraged. Doing anything good for your section is discouraged at Tribune.

 

Yep. It's embarrassing, but it seems the brass doesn't care. Maybe most of the readers don't either, but it bugs the crap out of me. And they run a Fla International notebook in ORLANDO, just so it can all be done in one place. Orlando does so many things that drive me insane now that Tribune has its editing/design hubs. Not sure exactly how it works, but I know someone who worked there for several years, and he said they basically don't have a copy desk, and the ones who are there at night are mostly focused on the wed. Disappointing.

 

All I know about our Sunday bulldog edition is that there are people who buy it on Saturday expecting results of games that haven't even been played yet.

 

That would be one hell of a business model.