Universal desk problems

[WordMP]

Anyone have experience working with a universal desk that can offer some advice on how to deal with one that is not working well? The lack of expertise is evident most days, including in our layout. We are at a midsized paper and have worked under this new copy flow design for about a year.

 

[SoCalDude]

Why don't you ask Dean Singleton to explain it. He's the only one who thinks it works. Nobody with any newspaper experience thinks it works.

 

[thegrifter]

and yet, so many of us are stuck with it!

 

[EE94]

I use a house metaphor to illustrate the problems with universal desks.

A group of 15 people with knowledge of construction can build a house.
But the better house will be built by a crew of experts - plumbers doing plumbing, electricians doing the wiring, framers doing the construction, etc.
They are specialists in what they do and it shows in the details. They know what problems to anticipate and know where to go for solutions.

 

[SoCalDude]

A very good example. We find that out almost nightly when newssiders come over to help out our depleted desk and they slow us down more than help us.

 

[kingcreole]

Oh boy do I have some universal desk stories. We were ready to go through it, but for the last few weeks, it's been nothing but a couple news guys doing the front for us every few days.

They wanted us to do the weather page a few times. I did it one night, another guy did it another and then one night, they asked us again to do it. Two hours before deadline, we had not started any of our pages, and all four of us in the office that night were still writing after covering events. I walked over to the news desk and told them we could not do weather.

They haven't asked us to do anything again. Universal desk is an excuse to turn the sports desk into the news desk's *****. Stand up now before the **** hits the fan. Bottom line is, very few people truly understand how the sports desk works. they see things slow down in the summer, and that's when they get these great ****ing ideas. Funny how none of the news folks will want to do a boxscore, do the agate page or compile the MLB roundup.

 

[Ira_Schoffel]

Been through it once, and it was an unmitigated disaster. Seen if fail elsewhere as well.

The house analogy was perfect. Just a total cluster**** that leaves everyone poorer for it -- writers, editors and readers.

 

[shotglass]

Just count the number of times a news-side copy editor has come over to you and started a question with, "Now, I don't know anything about sports, but..."

 

[MGoBlue]

You should try on the other shoe, when sports people come over the newsdesk and don't know the House of Reps from the Senate, what proper attributions are in crime stories and don't know a world leader outside of Bush.

Works both ways, boys and girls.

But that house analogy was excellent. Can't argue with it.

But as this biz progresses (or digresses, as the cases may be), you better be able to do it all or you will be left behind. The days of specialization are coming to an end.

 

[shotglass]

If anything, the opposite is true.

 

[wickedwritah]

Generalizations here, folks. They're not 100 percent true, but they are based on my time in the biz.

Sports folks are more likely to be well-rounded. Yes, we sometimes listen to the 6 p.m. news outside of the two-minute sportscast. That stuff about the House of Representatives, the Senate, the car crashes, everything, we hear about it.

The news folks usually stick to their little fiefdoms. If you had a cops reporter and needed him to cover City Hall, odds are he'd be totally lost. He is focused only on his cops stuff, and he doesn't keep up with everything else.

Put a sports guy on a news desk, and he can flourish (and crank out pages faster than most of the news folks). Other way around, not so much.

 

[statrat]

Generalizations here, folks. They're not 100 percent true, but they are based on my time in the biz.

Sports folks are more likely to be well-rounded. Yes, we sometimes listen to the 6 p.m. news outside of the two-minute sportscast. That stuff about the House of Representatives, the Senate, the car crashes, everything, we hear about it.

The news folks usually stick to their little fiefdoms. If you had a cops reporter and needed him to cover City Hall, odds are he'd be totally lost. He is focused only on his cops stuff, and he doesn't keep up with everything else.

Put a sports guy on a news desk, and he can flourish (and crank out pages faster than most of the news folks). Other way around, not so much.

I agree whole heartedly. I've stepped in to cover news events plenty of times and come back with stuff that is pretty darn good in my opinion. I asked a news sider to fill in for me once and will never do it again after I spent hours rewriting a story so it could actually be usable.

 

[Flash]

Why don't you ask Dean Singleton to explain it. He's the only one who thinks it works. Nobody with any newspaper experience thinks it works.

He has a friend in Pierre Karl Peladeau.

 

[maumann]

I'll take nothing away from the news desk but I have to relate a story from a few years ago.

In those days, the Rocky Mount Telegram was Sunday AM, weekday PM, which meant if something missed the one deadline, it would be 36 hours before the next news cycle.

The one news editor was usually done with the front around 8 and would sit and watch television while we were banging away, since he had to stay to check pages once the press started. Well, about 11, we started hearing about a crash involving Princess Diana in Paris -- and the reports became more and more ominous.

He came to me and in a panicky tone said, "What do you think I should do? The front's already been approved." (The city editor had to approve all changes then.)

Well, I explained that I'd take the heat if he wanted to switch out something. He finally found a 12-inch hole -- but at the time, AP hadn't sent even an alert, let alone a first lede. (All the TV stuff was either Reuters or AFP, from what I remember.)

So in the middle of trying to get my own section out, I told him I'd write him 12 inches on Princess Diana -- a couple of graphs of the most updated info we had, plus a bunch of background -- if he'd get a thumbnail and headline ready.

Fifteen minutes later, he had the story, and stared at me like I had produced a gold bar out of my butt.

"How did you do that so fast?"

"Well, in sports, we do this kind of thing every day."

 

[SixToe]

Well, in sports, we do this kind of thing every day."

"And without 18 cheese or pepperoni pizzas, either, like on election night."

 

[zeke12]

Great story, maumann.

 

[shotglass]

Well, in sports, we do this kind of thing every day."

"And without 18 cheese or pepperoni pizzas, either, like on election night."

Oh, we have 18 cheese or pepperoni pizzas, too.







We just buy them ourselves.

 

[forever_town]

The days of being compartmentalized into small beat segments of a section are ending. We're all going to have to be generalists before long: Capable of writing a 30 inch story, taking our own photos, doing our own video for the Web site, paginating and editing other copy. We're also going to have to be able to cover the city council meeting or the shooting down the street or last night's ballgame at the drop of a hat.

I don't know if that's good for journalism, but that seems to be the direction we're heading in.

And yes, that was a great story, maumann.

 

[shotglass]

Maybe at 20Ks. Not much larger.

 

[forever_town]

Maybe at 20Ks. Not much larger.

Don't be so sure.