What exactly does desk work entail?

When I interned at a paper in Southern California, they had a job called Night general assignment. It was writing, but technically it was considered a desk shift.

If anything happened at night that didn't fall neatly into someone's beat, you were on it.

A lot of times it would be something like if someone died and there was a local who had ties to that person, I'd have to track them down. Unfortunately, it also involved doing fan reaction stories when warranted. If it was particularly slow, which was rare, you might have to write briefs to help the wire editor.

It was actually kind of a fun shift, especially considering what the other deskers had to do.

 

Respectfully disagree. And I am pretty good at my job. There's a world of difference between taking an hour here and there at home to sketch out a plan, or brainstorm a few ideas, and working 60-80 hours per week working a beat, taking calls at home, never really being off the clock, writing while on vacation, etc.

I've done both. And the amount of work done at home as a desker pales in comparison to the work done at home as a writer.

I don't consider the occasional time spent planning or brainstorming as "taking the job home." Especially when there's only a handful of special sections to do every year, not counting unexpected breaking news.

I agree with those who say it's a different kind of stress. And I've also had the nightmares about the section being blank an hour before deadline. Those aren't fun.

 

DC and Frank both are right. It depends on your makeup. I still have the nightmares about forgetting to send a page, or leaving out a scoreline, or editing a misspelling into a writer's story. It also takes me a while to unwind after my shift, but that worked the same for me when I was writing a lot more, too.

I will add to the list of deskers' potential responsibilities: drinking. Sometimes you just want to forget what happened, very quickly. Not the best way to cope, but a lot of us do it on occasion.

 

It depends on the size and setup of the paper. The paper where I spent most of my newspaper career had four desk people in sports, all combo designer/copy editors. We took turns being the slot person, which entails planning out that day's section, doing the front page, along with a couple other inside pages. The other paper I worked for, which was much bigger, had a night editor whose main job was planning the daily section and reading copy, and the other desk people are combo designer/copy editors. At that paper, being the slot person just meant doing the front page.

 

I'm on board with both of those statements. Definitely can't say I leave all of my job at the office; we all "take it home" a little bit, if nothing else just because it takes some time to unwind at the end of the night. But that's one of the main perks for me, as a desker, is that for the most part, my job takes place in very defined shifts -- I'm an hour away from heading into the newsroom today, and my day is not revolving around what I'm going to do at work tonight.

I love it. Wouldn't ever go back to the reporter's life I had, at least if I had any choice in the matter. I write on my own time, and that's how I get my fix. But I enjoy desk work, and I think I'm pretty good at it, so it's a good fit.

Deadline is a tricky kind of stress, for a desker. The rush is the same as it is when you're writing -- but the skills involved are much different. You've got to be able to manage an immediate (and sometimes overwhelming) flow of copy between the editorial program you're using and your design program. (Hopefully, you've got a separate editor who can read the copy before you flow it onto the page, but not all of us have that luxury.) You've got to know your system well to be able to handle that. And you still have to give stories a good edit and make sure everything's right on the page, so in the midst of all this technical rush -- the journalism has to be precise, too. It's an acquired skill, I think, to be able to do both of those well.

News-side is different -- not as much deadline stress, from late games and late phone calls coming in. A lot more work goes into the planning and execution of it. But the hours are still about the same, the work is still the same, even if the people are a little stranger.

The nightmares? Oh yeah. Can't help it, because it eats at me when something gets fucked up (whether it's my fault or not.) I think anybody who takes any pride in their work feels the same way.

 

Very few big shops now have writers take desk shifts in their off-seasons. Most current computer systems are challenging for writers to pick up (and contribute to) on a casual basis. At a previous metro stop, the prep editor did occasional desk shifts in the summer because he had been on the desk before. I've had desk and assigning gigs, and I can say I've never done an agate shift. ;D

 

As mentioned before, the desk and reporting are each different skill sets. Some people are better suited to one or the other. I'd venture to say that most are better at one particular skill than others.

Editing and page design are two skills that can challenge anyone who has them. You have to fit elements onto a page in a way that's visually appealing. You have to catch mistakes in style and substance. You have to do both on a tight deadline. Heaven help you if you have a reporter who has to have reconstructive surgery done on his writing. On deadline.

Hopefully, by the time copy gets to you, it'll have the major stuff done to it if major stuff is required.

 

Geez, Dick, didn't mean to imply that deskers took their work home as much as writers. Not in the least. Writers are "always working" to a much greater extent than desk people are.

The question was in absolutes: "You never have to take your job home" sorta thing. And as a desk guy, I certainly DID take it home a lot, worrying about layouts or headlines or edits (or lack thereof) or cuts or photos I used (and didn't). And I have woken up with a lot of deadline nightmares over the years.

Bosses take home their work more than desk editors, but perhaps less than writers.

Matter of degree, is all.

 

Never woken up with deadline nightmares, but I have, on a number of occasions, woken up with a stupid fear that I fucked up the date, a headline on the front, or something like that.

We both take our work home. The degree to which you do that depends on the person. For me, I get off work at 1 or 2. I'll bum around online trying out new Photoshop/Illustrator tricks that will likely never see the light of day on a layout. But I know deskers who don't do that, just as there are certain days I don't do that.

It just depends on the person. The biggest difference is the adrenaline when you leave. If I'm asleep before 4, I call it a moral victory.

 

Wow, I've had that one. It alternates with my 10th year in college/still haven't graduated dream.

 

Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour.

Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.