By John Russial, University of Oregon
Special to the Poynter Institute
Pagination is easily the most stress-producing technological change newspapers have undergone. Editors tend to be somewhat ambivalent about pagination. It can increase their flexibility in page design, and it does increase their control of the page, but it also adds to the bundle of tasks they need to accomplish. In effect, pagination shifts makeup work done in the back shop into the newsroom. It can save page-production time and certainly saves money overall, but by most accounts, it does not save time in the newsroom. In fact, it typically takes more time. The burden lands squarely on the desk, whether it be a copy desk, design desk or both.
The following suggestions for managing pagination are based on lessons papers have learned — some the hard way.
1. Make sure you have enough bodies
Many papers added editing or design staff to better handle pagination. Some did it willingly; others did it kicking and screaming all the way. Some added none, and some insist that none need to be added. They may be right, but the weight of evidence suggests that if papers do not increase the resources they devote to editing, their editing will suffer. How many more people are needed is a tough question to answer. A ballpark estimate is about 1 for every 5 editors who spend a lot of their time doing page design.
2. Make sure you have enough expertise
Hire or develop in-house expertise. Most desks have at least one person who loves technology. Let him or her spend some time learning pagination. Break two people free if you can afford to. Backup is a good thing. This sort of pre-emptive strike can pay off handsomely during training, during the phase-in period and afterward.
For example, during training, the on-staff expert can:
- Help the vendor deliver training that’s appropriate to your paper. Vendor trainers often just present a generic package: “This is how you do “X”; this is how you do “Y.” This approach can waste your time, if you never do X and Y, but are big on Z, A, B and C, and you need to be able to do them PDQ.
- Conduct the training. This can save both aggravation and money. Publishers like to hear how they can save money.
Many papers fail to budget for news-staff expertise, opting instead to let the data processing or systems professionals become the experts. That approach can lead to several problems:
- 1. These people often speak in tongues. They don’t speak the language of the newsroom. Pagination is confusing enough; you don’t need to compound it with communications problems.
- 2. They often don’t understand the newsroom’s problems. They may mean well, but that’s not enough. Problems need to be understood before they can be solved. Consider the flip side: You probably don’t understand their problems.
3. Make sure your experts have some time off the desk
They need some time to play with the system to learn shortcuts. The iron law of software is that there are three or more ways to perform any function. At least one is more efficient than the others. With pagination, gains in efficiency mean more time for editing, headline-writing and design. Giving up some time on the front end can give back a lot more when it counts most. Newspapers learned this lesson first with VDTs in the ’70s. Some of them seem to have forgotten it.
4. Make sure your experts tell the others what they’ve learned
Duh, you might say. As a practical matter, given the time pressures in most newsrooms and the lack of communication between desks and shifts, people who need to hear about innovations often don’t.
A few suggestions:
- Set up an ongoing in-house training program. This can be as simple as an all-comers meeting for a half hour on the least-busy day, or it can be formalized with release time.
- Make the computer work for you. Create a global tips file with access for everyone who uses the system. You can use this approach for other editing needs. An up-to-date online file that contains staff members’ phone numbers can be a valuable tool on deadline, when you need to reach a person quickly for an answer.
5. Don’t reinvent the wheel
Someone else has. Find that person. A few practical suggestions:
- Develop contacts with other users of your system. Newspapers have a tradition of sharing what they’ve learned about technology. Don’t overlook other media, such as magazines, that use the same software. Quark is a good example that is widely used.
- Budget for ongoing development of your experts. Many users of proprietary systems have active users groups. When these groups meet, it can be a tips bazaar. Here’s an example from my own experience as a systems manager in the late ’70s–I once picked up a tip at a DEC users group meeting that saved the two papers in our group at least $25,000 a year. That was in 1978 dollars. Most of what you pick up will not easily translate into dollars, but again, if it saves editors time, it pays dividends better than money.
