Office rearrangement

[KYSportsWriter]

Our newsroom is a little too quiet at times, it's almost creepy. Everyone could be working on something, yet it'll be completely quiet.

And nearly everyone hangs out in our section of the newsroom because we have the best TV back here, so I've had to yell "shut up" a few thousands times when I'm on the phone. I can't stand it when it's quiet in here.

 

[Den1983]

I suppose if you have to go through a newsroom reorganization, this is the right kind.

Really. Better to lose a door than get shown the door.

This is true. I was just seeking opinions. In my six years, at three different papers, I've never worked right open in the newsroom all willy nilly. Obviously I'm one of the few.

 

[YGBFKM]

I suppose if you have to go through a newsroom reorganization, this is the right kind.

Really. Better to lose a door than get shown the door.

This is true. I was just seeking opinions. In my six years, at three different papers, I've never worked right open in the newsroom all willy nilly. Obviously I'm one of the few.

It'll be like using your real name on a message board. It'll keep you from saying things you otherwise wouldn't in "real life."

 

[Ace]

I suppose if you have to go through a newsroom reorganization, this is the right kind.

Really. Better to lose a door than get shown the door.

This is true. I was just seeking opinions. In my six years, at three different papers, I've never worked right open in the newsroom all willy nilly. Obviously I'm one of the few.

Just pay attention when you see NSFW and you'll be fine.

 

[playthrough]

The loud newsroom, with all manner of banter, bull**** and activity, makes a shift 1,000 times better than coming to work in a morgue where everyone plugs in and ignores everyone else.

My last newsroom was a morgue and drove me out of the business faster. The draconian editor gal thought that noise = no work getting done. I asked the veteran photographer why there wasn't at least a police scanner running and he looked at me like I was nuts. What I hated most was feeling like the entire office could hear me when I was on the phone -- which they could because there wasn't another sound in the room. And this was a fairly big newsroom with 20 or so in there at peak times. And run like a goshdarned parochial grade-school classroom.

 

[Magic In The Night]

Newsrooms are supposed to be loud.

I agree. I've always said that this isn't a ****ing golf tournament. There's nothing worse than walking past a news copy desk where the people are all like Chief Broom in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

The reason the copy desk is so quiet now is there are so many stories and so much that needs to be fixed that you're cranking from the get-go and no real time to BS around anymore.

 

[YGBFKM]

Noise does not necessarily equal BS. Adults working in a collaborative environment tends to produce a little sound. The trend of everyone working as if they were encased in a cocoon actually hurts production, IMO.

 

[crimsonace]

My last newsroom was a morgue and drove me out of the business faster. The draconian editor gal thought that noise = no work getting done. I asked the veteran photographer why there wasn't at least a police scanner running and he looked at me like I was nuts.

Sadly, this doesn't surprise me, but they still manage to churn out -- IMO -- the single best sub-20,000 circ sports section I've ever seen.

The best day of my life was the day they rearranged the newsroom and moved sports into a little-used room off to the side. My desk had been right next to the editor's office, which the publisher had a knack for walking into and passing off a hair-brained idea (or complaining about something we were doing) right at the height of deadline. When my staff had an "office" where I could close the door and allow my guys to work, our productivity and morale jumped 1,000%. After I left, they moved those guys out in the newsroom ... right next to the publisher's office.

 

[Den1983]

Noise does not necessarily equal BS. Adults working in a collaborative environment tends to produce a little sound. The trend of everyone working as if they were encased in a cocoon actually hurts production, IMO.

This is true, but in our case those who make the most noise around the newsroom are BSin' 90 percent of the time.

 

[playthrough]

My last newsroom was a morgue and drove me out of the business faster. The draconian editor gal thought that noise = no work getting done. I asked the veteran photographer why there wasn't at least a police scanner running and he looked at me like I was nuts.

Sadly, this doesn't surprise me, but they still manage to churn out -- IMO -- the single best sub-20,000 circ sports section I've ever seen.

The best day of my life was the day they rearranged the newsroom and moved sports into a little-used room off to the side. My desk had been right next to the editor's office, which the publisher had a knack for walking into and passing off a hair-brained idea (or complaining about something we were doing) right at the height of deadline. When my staff had an "office" where I could close the door and allow my guys to work, our productivity and morale jumped 1,000%. After I left, they moved those guys out in the newsroom ... right next to the publisher's office.

True that, crimson. Perfectly good product. But that room really needed some hijinks, or just a good once-a-month scream from someone.

Don't ask me how, but I do think a fun, vibrant, even combative newsroom reflects itself in better stories and pages.

 

[Liut]

Lord help the reporter who shares a "newsroom" with a front desk of bitchy, loud-mouthed, gossipy women.

 

[Monday Morning Sportswriter]

I once worked in a completely open office -- only the publisher, comptroller and systems guy had private offices, everyone else was in one giant room. It wasn't bad at all. And it was great to get to know people in other departments.

 

[SF_Express]

Do you want to be in a busier area? Do you have a news editor who demands on silence, or are they willing to let people get nosy and animated? Do you think it'll be an impediment to your work if you're in a noisier area?

Sgreenwell, without even a hint of criticism of you, I weep for my beloved business that "a news editor who demands ... silence" and other parts of this are something anybody would even consider being good in a newsroom.

 

[jr/shotglass]

It's like anything else -- a grey area. Sure, we loved a feeling of controlled chaos in the newsroom. And having somebody sit there as "noise police" is irritating. But so is being on the phone with a source and having two idiots going back and forth loudly three cubicles away.

 

[SF_Express]

It's like anything else -- a grey area. Sure, we loved a feeling of controlled chaos in the newsroom. And having somebody sit there as "noise police" is irritating. But so is being on the phone with a source and having two idiots going back and forth loudly three cubicles away.

Shottie, I see what you're saying, but I recall that back in the stone age, we managed to make it work without everybody sitting like a bunch of actuaries calculating sinkhole risks to the 15th decimal point.

 

[Ace]

Some people are bothered by noise when they work or write. I've seen guys in press boxes who shoot dirty looks at folks talking in a normal voice while they're batting out a story on deadline.

I've always been able to block the noise out.

I'd rather have some noise in the office. It's awkward to call you bookie when everyone in the place can hear.

 

[playthrough]

I remember a co-worker once crawling under his desk to call his bookie.

 

[jr/shotglass]

I'd rather have some noise in the office. It's awkward to call you bookie when everyone in the place can hear.

Well, there is this.

 

[StaggerLee]

We used to work in a secluded area (which we called the Bat Cave) in our old office. We were able to be as loud and boisterous as any sports department should be on a Friday night during football season.

Moved into the new, bigger office and now we're in a open newsroom with four rows of cubicles, with each row having 16 or so cubicles. It was very loud when we first moved in, and sound carried and the reporters bitched when sports got too loud and we bitched on the one night of the year when reporters got too loud (election night).

I work at a Gannett shop, so that little problem of the newsroom being too loud was addressed by laying off 60% of the newsroom staff. Now, we have 64 cubicles with only 20 of those cubicles being occupied by a body. It's basically a barren wasteland of empty cubicles that once resembled a working newsroom.

Nowadays, people plug in their headphones and work quietly. After 6 p.m., the newsroom empties, and pretty much the only people in the building are the two sports guys and maybe a photog. Sometimes a night editor is there until around 8 or 9, but never a reporter past 6, unless they're covering a late city council meeting.

 

[SF_Express]

Don't get me started on headphones ... that horse is well clear of the barn, and it's not a positive development, but I'm sure that's the old fogey in my talking.