How your city's newspaper handled the fatal shootings in Dallas?

[Mr. X]

How did your newspaper, or the newspaper in your city, handle the fatal shootings of five police officers in Dallas in Friday's editions?

The paper in my city, which has early A section deadlines, wrapped its A section with what it called an ``Extra'' with a story written several states from Dallas, accompanied by three pictures.

 

[reformedhack]

Front page, big two-deck headline, lede position.

I'm on the east coast. Looking through the Newseum's daily front pages yesterday, I was surprised by how many big papers — including one in Texas — in the Central time zone and westward didn't have it on their front page at all. I guess deadlines keep creeping earlier and earlier and earlier ...

 

[Riptide]

Austin's final deadline is 8:30 local time. They got shut out.

 

[Deskgrunt50]

Austin's final deadline is 8:30 local time. They got shut out.

That's disgraceful. Sometimes you call people back and screw the deadlines.

Front page for us.

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

Sidebar with man on the street reaction and another with statements from politicos who were all - yawn - "shocked and saddened."

 

[Riptide]

I'll see your "shocked and saddened" and raise you "thoughts and prayers."

 

[LanceyHoward]

Austin's final deadline is 8:30 local time. They got shut out.

Why does a town as big as Austin have an 8:30 deadline? They must have given up on getting an game stories in for the paper.

 

[reformedhack]

Austin's final deadline is 8:30 local time. They got shut out.

Yep, that's the one I alluded to.

 

[fossywriter8]

Those early deadlines are going to start costing terrorists scholarships.

 

[Bronco77]

Two of the three papers within 40 miles of my home (East Coast deadlines) had nothing, at least not in the editions I saw. The other had it as the 1A lead/centerpiece in its final edition and appeared to have done a fine job under the circumstances (it also ran a blurb directing readers to a digital extra with expanded coverage).

Why does a town as big as Austin have an 8:30 deadline? They must have given up on getting an game stories in for the paper.

I believe that paper has outsourced its printing to either San Antonio or Houston, and deadlines were moved up accordingly. And you're right about game stories -- with Longhorns football playing mostly night games, they miss out unless there are some serious deadline concessions.

 

[SoloFlyer]

Small suburban paper went web only. I have no idea why, as I believe their deadline is at least 11 pm.

 

[JohnHammond]

Why does a town as big as Austin have an 8:30 deadline? They must have given up on getting an game stories in for the paper.

Anyone with an expectation the print edition should contain up-to-date news probably doesn't understand the internet is on computers now.

 

[Riptide]

Two of the three papers within 40 miles of my home (East Coast deadlines) had nothing, at least not in the editions I saw. The other had it as the 1A lead/centerpiece in its final edition and appeared to have done a fine job under the circumstances (it also ran a blurb directing readers to a digital extra with expanded coverage).


I believe that paper has outsourced its printing to either San Antonio or Houston, and deadlines were moved up accordingly. And you're right about game stories -- with Longhorns football playing mostly night games, they miss out unless there are some serious deadline concessions.

San Antonio AND Houston!

 

[BDC99]

Front page, big two-deck headline, lede position.

I'm on the east coast. Looking through the Newseum's daily front pages yesterday, I was surprised by how many big papers — including one in Texas — in the Central time zone and westward didn't have it on their front page at all. I guess deadlines keep creeping earlier and earlier and earlier ...

Same here. I was actually stunned it was the lead story given what I have experienced with deadlines.

 

[mpcincal]

Small West Coast local daily here with page-out deadline at 11:45, so we didn't have as much of a problem here, although I work with a Regional Design Center, so that always makes things a little harder than it could be.
We already had a story on the previous police shootings in La. and Minn. as a top rail, and fortunately I caught the Dallas thing early on and soon realized it would be A1. Put it on that top rail, replacing the earlier story and was able to wait for the most recent version.
For Saturday's paper, we did a four-story centerpiece package with some other related stories inside. Through happenstance, we ended up with a lot of extra jump space (which isn't common at this shop) so I was happy we were able to get everything in without having to slash stories.

 

[I Should Coco]

Small daily in the Pacific Northwest ... kept all the local stuff (include an absolute clunker local business sold/advertorial story) on A1 and blew out the Dallas coverage on A3.

Not the proudest day in Podunk Press history. Hey, I just make the doughnuts ...

Our reporters did get several "localization" stories for Saturday's A1, at least.

 

[BDC99]

Small West Coast local daily here with page-out deadline at 11:45, so we didn't have as much of a problem here, although I work with a Regional Design Center, so that always makes things a little harder than it could be.
We already had a story on the previous police shootings in La. and Minn. as a top rail, and fortunately I caught the Dallas thing early on and soon realized it would be A1. Put it on that top rail, replacing the earlier story and was able to wait for the most recent version.
For Saturday's paper, we did a four-story centerpiece package with some other related stories inside. Through happenstance, we ended up with a lot of extra jump space (which isn't common at this shop) so I was happy we were able to get everything in without having to slash stories.

I have no doubt the paper here that led with it already had a lead in place on the two police shootings. Zero doubt.

 

[UPChip]

Medium-sized daily in the Upper Midwest:

We had a short item on A2. Final deadline for both sports and news is 11:30, but I don't think we had much useful content from Reuters by that time. Also, we were still chasing the Castile shooting (which broke in our region on or after deadline the day before) and had some of the best local art I've seen in my 11 months working here (air show precede - Thunderbird with contrails at Mach 0.9). Would have been very tough to tear up the front an hour before deadline for a story that was still developing (well, at least it was to our wire service).

 

[Desk_dude]

That's disgraceful. Sometimes you call people back and screw the deadlines.

Front page for us.

They have a printing contract with Hearst to print the live sections in San Antonio. They only rarely adjust the deadline by an hour or so for known events, such as an election. Cox put out two digital extras on Friday.

 

[I Should Coco]

Medium-sized daily in the Upper Midwest:

We had a short item on A2. Final deadline for both sports and news is 11:30, but I don't think we had much useful content from Reuters by that time. Also, we were still chasing the Castile shooting (which broke in our region on or after deadline the day before) and had some of the best local art I've seen in my 11 months working here (air show precede - Thunderbird with contrails at Mach 0.9). Would have been very tough to tear up the front an hour before deadline for a story that was still developing (well, at least it was to our wire service).

You bring up a good point. The gap between something breaking on Twitter, websites, etc. and when AP or your wire service moves a usable story can be several hours.

Even in the Pacific time zone (11 p.m. deadline), I had to cobble together a couple different AP stories at the last possible moment to get the freshest Dallas news and Minnesota info in one story. The AP writethru was awful and packed full of errors/repeated paragraphs.