Universal desk problems

My paper is considering going to universal desk and the news deskers seem to be more freaked out about the *possibility* of having to set an agate page than any of the other ramifications.

 

Joe, if the police report was written that way, I don't have a problem with that in the story. If it's attributed and everything, as it should be, you'll be fine.

If the reporter could've found a witness to give his/her own details, that would've been preferable.

 

I've been on both Sports and News desks, but not in a Universal desk situation. They are two different beasts, yes, yet I'm grateful for the Sports experience. Some people I've worked with on News side operations might not (in my humble opinion) be able to pull off switching out Thursday's late NL boxes with the Dodgers and A's boxes that just crossed AP's lovely (sarcasm font) agate stream.

 

I watched it evolve at our shop over the years . . . News side would be 90 minutes late on election night despite relaxed deadlines . . . the next year, sports guys were brought in to build and keyboard the results charts because they were so good with numbers -- paper would get off the floor 30 minutes late . . .

The next time, sports guys get drafted to do rewrite )putting 100-word leads on top of pre-built shirt-tails, build and populate the results tables and do a little bit of layout and proofing -- Deadlines? 10 minutes early