You’ve done it again. Success! Every page in this week’s (or day’s) paper is in by deadline. It took some doing, but like almost every issue before it, you’ve created another miracle: cramming thousands of words and photos together into your latest newspaper. And…you’ve and done it on deadline.
Well, before you stroll from your desk brimming with pride, let’s take a closer look at the “miracle.” Every page is in, perhaps, but most of them went to prepress in the last half-day (or last hour).
So, yes, all the pages are “in,” but you’ve created a problem for those who have to turn those pages into files that can be processed and printed.
And consider the concerns of those in the newsroom who have to design, edit and clear those pages by deadline. If something is wrong on one of the pages they’re working on, then they have to take extra time to fix the problem, often having to go back to the originating editor or writer. With six or eight other pages waiting to be cleared, the pressure mounts.
So, yes, you have a “deadline.” And, yes, you may be meeting that “deadline.” But the “deadline” isn’t helping you with a steady page flow.
Here’s a solution: Page-by-page deadlines.
Why, for example, would you wait until the last hour to clear your opinion page, when the columns and letters that go on that page can be edited and headlined the day before your weekly deadline? And why wait until that last hour for the community calendar page to be cleared? Is there any reason why the weekly religion page (with its static directory of area worship services) should be among the last pages to go to prepress?
Sure, there are pages you’ll want to hold until the last hour (or last minute!). Page 1 and its jump page and the Sports front and jump come to mind. You can work on those more effectively if you’ve already cleared those pages (see previous paragraph) that can go early.
There are too many variations and too many other factors (like advertising placement and deadlines) for me to offer a set of page deadlines here — for either a weekly or daily newspaper. I’m confident, though, that you can take a look at your paper’s content and decide upon those pages that can be cleared days (or hours) before deadline.
Creating a system of staggered page deadlines offers you the opportunity to avoid the bottlenecks and hassles that accompany a “one-deadline-for-all” approach to producing your paper.
Seems to me it’s worth giving it a try.
Michael J. Lambert and Sheila K. Meagher join the firm’s media law practice and represent a wide range of media clients in prepublication review and other areas. Michael counsels publishers and journalists on access, newsgathering, privacy, defamation, and related issues. Before joining Prince Lobel, he worked with the NBCUniversal News Group in New York City, and served as a judicial clerk to the Hon. Steven M. Wellner of the District of Columbia Superior Court. Michael received his law degree in 2015 from the Paul M. Hebert Center of Louisiana State University.
Sheila focuses on transactional matters for media clients, including contracts, licensing, promotions, native advertising, and intellectual property protection. Before joining Prince Lobel, she was a private equity attorney at a large Boston law firm, where she assisted with a variety of acquisitions and investments. She has particular experience in the sports industry, having worked during law school for the Boston Red Sox, where she assisted in the drafting of sponsorship, licensing, and event agreements for entities under the Fenway Sports Group umbrella. After graduating from Boston College Law School in 2016, she clerked for the Hon. Charles E. Butler of the Delaware Superior Court.
Student Journalism: More Needed Than Ever
In more communities today than ever, student publications are doing double-duty — reporting news of schools and surrounding communities — and doing both well.
As a nation, and for anyone who supports a free press, that dual rule is worthy of notice, honor and support. We take note of the great work being done by journalists who happen to be students as we recognize the 50th anniversary of a major student-First Amendment decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Freedom Forum Institute (FFI), the Newseum and the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) are declaring 2019 the “Year of the Student Journalist.”
As you might expect in today’s world, the life of student journalists and of the student press is not without challenge and obstacle, along with great dollops of good reporting.
As SPLC Executive Director Hadar Harris — with whom, in full disclosure, I and my FFI colleagues are coordinating this declared “Year” — recently wrote: “Student journalists play a key role in the civic life of their community. Not only do they report on important issues in the life of a school or school district, but as the number of professional journalists has dwindled, student journalists often also fill the gap in reporting on county, state and regional issues.”
“In 2014, a Pew research study found that student journalists made up 14 percent of the overall state house reporting corps. That number is certainly higher today. But student journalists and journalism education programs are under pressure. Student journalists have lesser First Amendment protections and are often subject to censorship, prior review, budget battles and other external pressures.”
For many who don’t often see student journalism, at the high school or college levels, the recollections are more likely than not to revolve around stories of “big games,” student elections or such. But in the 21st century, as newspaper circulation nationwide has continued to drop — more than 11 percent last year alone, reports document — more student journalists are reporting on stories and issues outside their school grounds or campuses.
In the past year, SPLC reports, students broke important stories about teacher misconduct (Utah), improper transfer of student athletes (Arkansas) and disciplinary charges by a state agency against an administrator (Vermont). Stories from students about teen pregnancy, drug abuse, mental illness and even how the recent partial federal government affected local businesses are now commonplace.
Sadly, school administrators censored those controversial stories in efforts not to make their schools look bad. In Texas, after students published editorials critical of the school administration, the paper was suspended and the unhappy principal banned all student editorials. In each case, the stories were reinstated, but the framework which allows for such censorship remains.
Just as we have not tolerated government control of what general news outlets can report, but hold them accountable for that reporting, we should adopt that same approach to student journalism. The Year of the Student Journalist will also highlight state-based student-led efforts to protect student press freedom and to prevent retaliation against advisers standing up for the First Amendment rights of their students. Such New Voices protections are in place in 14 states and are currently pending in eight more.
The legislation reflects changes in attitudes among our fellow citizens, according to the Freedom Forum Institute’s annual “State of the First Amendment” national survey. In 2014, the last year in which the direct question was included in the survey, 68 percent agreed that public school students should be allowed to report on controversial issues in their student newspapers without the approval of school authorities, while only 27 percent disagreed. When the question was first asked in 2001, Americans were almost evenly split on the question and those who strongly disagreed with the statement dominated the response.
As we saw demonstrated most tragically in the mass shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., nearly a year ago, student journalists can compete with professionals in reporting on even such horrific news.
As one student editor told me during a podcast interview just days later, the newspaper staff was making coverage plans even as the shots were still being fired, as they huddled in a closet for safety. The thinking: It was a big story, whether a faked attack or a real one.
Such an approach to covering the news — and the quality report that staff produced days later — is a professional approach to news that would bring credit to any newsroom.
In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 7-2, in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District that neither “students (n)or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
Now, with that admonition in mind, and the realization that for many of us, student journalists will bring us the news of our town, school district or more, it’s time to support these journalists and their publications.
So let’s spend 2019 doing just that — in the “Year of the Student Journalist.”