AP page-ready agate?

[VJ]

The bosses are looking to cut costs and the agate clerk has been deemed expendable. But to do so, they are looking for information on any AP page-ready agate services that are offered since we still need to run boxes, etc.

We're aware there's some baseball-only service but this would need to include NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, BKC, FBC, etc.

Does this exist? Any experience using something like this?

 

[Chi City 81]

Yes. I'm trying to remember the link from my old paper:

www.canwestnewsweb.com

 

[VJ]

Right, we took a look at them but the issue was it was only MLB, not other sports. For whatever reason someone in management is convinced there's a service that offers all sports.

 

[Chi City 81]

Right, we took a look at them but the issue was it was only MLB, not other sports. For whatever reason someone in management is convinced there's a service that offers all sports.

It's not just MLB. It also offers NFL.

 

[Steve Trosky]

We used it in Lynchburg and it made things a lot easier. Designers were able to spend more time creating sharp pages instead of spending time formatting MLB or NFL boxes/yardsticks. It takes about 2 minutes to go in, copy and paste onto the page using a Quark system then change to fit your section's style (rule point size, change to "Today's game").

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Nothing against you, but why are the managers trying to make you do their job of finding the relevent services which match their beliefs of what your newspaper's resources are?

 

[Colton]

Since our staff was slashed, this service has been a blessing. We use both the MLB and NFL and had the NBA, too, before AP discontinued it.

Saves us a bunch of time on an every-night basis.

 

[VJ]

So what do you guys do with NBA, NHL, BKC, FBC, golf, etc.?

 

[Football_Bat]

We use it for NFL and MLB. We actually were able to convince our publisher we'd save money by using it.

(Our publisher is so stupid about money, he won't pay for a hotel room even if we have to go 150 miles one way to cover a back-to-back. So I put down mileage there-and-back, there-and-back, get a hotel room, and come out way ahead. But that's another post.)

And we do save money — or at least a ****load of labor. It cuts formatting time down to just copy-and-pasting basically. But we went to the 46" web last month, so we'll have to do some dummies and re-adjust before the MLB season opens.