Universal Copy/Design Desk (request for help)

[usermane]

Anybody else on a universal desk willing to talk via PM about how stuff gets done?

 

[usermane]

Bump for near utter and complete lack of response.

/oh well

 

[HanSenSE]

It's like watching sausage being made ... you don't want to know

Seriously, I'll offer this advice. It's a discussion forum. We interact and share ideas on what does and doesn't work. I've turned here a couple of times for advice and haven't been sold a bum steer yet. But if all you want are PM's, nobody's going to learn a thing.

 

[usermane]

Certainly don't have any problems chatting in the thread. Just wasn't sure if we were going to approach the point where folks would feel like they were outing themselves.

 

[I Should Coco]

@usermane: If you have a specific question or concern about a universal desk setup, I think you can post about it without "outing" yourself. There are still quite a few copy desks organized in this way.

Here's my quick take on the universal desk (from my previous shop):

PROS: If the jobs/duties truly are rotated around, it keeps people fresh. Even those of us who were "raised" as reporters and are now deskers enjoy getting the chance to design a lifestyle section front once in a while. For younger/newer copy editors, it's good experience (and good for your clip file) to do a few A1 and lifestyle section fronts, instead of a steady diet of inside news pages.

CONS: It is horribly inefficient to try and train everyone to do all the specialty pages (baseball page, obits, Dear Abby/puzzle page, etc.). And not every copy editor works well under the nightly deadline pressure that is sports. Some deskers know how to set things up and anticipate what late copy/photos will come in, and for others, it drives them crazy to start a page when they don't have everything in the system.