Workshops
Afraid of Math? Take a Number
Rim Editors Forum
Alternative Press
Forest Through the Trees
Quality Control on a Small Desk
Between the Lines
Improv Editing
Editing Voices of Color
Code Blue
Bridging the Divide
By Deirdre Goebel Edgar
At many papers, the
chasm between the copy desk and city desk seems as deep as the Grand Canyon.
It's the classic ''us vs. them'' mind-set, and the mood can be contentious
on both sides.
But getting the paper
out each night requires cooperation and collaboration, so what can be done
to close the gap?
''Bridging the Divide,''
a panel discussion Friday afternoon at the ACES conference, tackles that
very question. The panel is modeled after a similar discussion at the first
meeting of the Southern
California ACES chapter in May 1998.
Laura Wingard, assistant
managing editor/metro at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif., was
part of that first discussion and was a panelist at the session in Long
Beach.
"I've
spent a lot of my line-editing career with my back to the copy desk,''
Wingard said. ''I don't know if that newsroom configuration made me realize
I better make friends with those colleagues, but that was the result. And
I don't regret it.''
Barbara Tarshes, metro
copy desk chief at The Press-Enterprise, who helped organize the conference
panel, said Wingard brings an interesting perspective to an eternal sticking
point between copy desk and city desk: deadline.
''She has managed to
bring our metro staff into deadline compliance,'' Tarshes said. ''We have
a detailed deadline schedule that goes into everything from breaking news
to non-breaking, weekend stories and community news.
''If
the metro desk isn't behind it, it won't work. Laura backed the concept
and has been part of its implementation and its enforcement.''
Another panelist, John
Futch, executive news editor at the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, said
there is always a divide between the copy desk and city desk, although,
he said, ''I suspect the width is different depending on the size of the
paper.''
Futch said that he's worked
at various-size newspapers and that a small one, the Boca News, had the
best relationship between the desks. ''(It) was virtually non-territorial,
driven by the 'We're all in this together' factor,'' Futch said. He worked
at the paper in the mid-1990s.
A little give and take goes
a long way, Wingard
said. By setting a standard that
the city desk turns in stories on time and at budgeted length, Wingard
has found the copy desk to be more understanding when there is an exception.
''When we do screw
up,'' Wingard said, ''I acknowledge it and my friends on the copy desk
are quick to forgive.''
Futch said the relationship
between desks is improving. ''We live in tough times and the tough times
we had in Boca, which led to an investment in each other, is spilling over
to larger papers.''
Mutual respect was
key in the conference discussion. Tarshes recalled a survey conducted on
the Los Angeles Times' metro copy desk and city desk in which each side
listed its expectations of the other. No. 1 on both lists: respect.
Wingard echoes that
sentiment. ''If both sides of the newsroom divide show the other a little
respect and empathy, the feuding stops, the problem-solving starts, and
the paper gets out the door on time and in pretty fine
shape for readers,'' she said. ''At
least that's been my experience.''
Wingard and Futch were
joined on the conference panel by Iris Yokoi, a team leader at the Orange
County Register. Moderating the panel was Christie D'Zurilla, quality team
leader/neighborhoods at the Register.
===============
Deirdre Goebel Edgar is an assistant
copy desk chief for the Los Angeles Times' Orange County edition. She can
be reached at deirdre.edgar@latimes.com.