Craig Brown is The Columbian’s editor. Contact him at 360-735-4514 or craig.brown@columbian.com.
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I used to be sitting in a gathering this week and I began eager about how we use conferences to form tales and put collectively our print and digital merchandise. We’ve modified these conferences fairly a bit this yr as we moved to extra of a digital-first technique. So I assumed I might listing the important thing conferences, once they happen and speak a bit about them:
Print last: 10 a.m. Mondays-Fridays. This assembly lasts between 15 and half-hour and normally begins with a presentation by Native Information Editor Jessica Prokop proposing a slate of native tales for the subsequent day’s print version. That’s adopted by the day’s wire information editor, normally Colleen Keller, who pitches the highest tales from our information providers, together with the Related Press and Washington State Commonplace. Subsequent, Photograph Editor Amanda Cowan exhibits potential images for the entrance web page, after which we determine the ultimate lineup for print. The assembly concludes with a take a look at what tales will probably be filed after the print deadline, however able to submit on www.columbian.com earlier than the top of the day.
Saturday A1 centerpiece: 10:30 a.m. Wednesdays. Our front-page Saturday options will be within the works for a number of weeks and even months, so we have to evaluation them as they progress. We typically take a look at the subsequent three Saturdays at these conferences, that are attended by the reporters on the tales plus representatives from the picture division and the copy desk. The assembly can final anyplace from 10 to half-hour.
Reporter conferences: 10:30 a.m. and a couple of p.m. Thursdays. I don’t typically attend these conferences, however the reporters and the content material editors do. The aim is to evaluation work plans and story concepts in small teams in order that we will be prepared for the week’s last assembly, which is the …
Story planning assembly: 3 p.m. Fridays. Jessica takes the lead at this assembly, too. By this time she’s acquired work plans from the reporters, attended the reporter conferences and compiled an early take a look at how the information will circulate for the subsequent week. This offers the opposite editors time to ask questions, ensure that images and graphics are assigned, and ensure we’ll have house for all the things and no gaps. This assembly takes about half-hour.
These few brief conferences assist us keep organized.
This plan didn’t work
Trustworthy ePaper readers seen on Tuesday that our effort to do one thing good resulted in a bizarre failure. Once we write our tales, we will embed dynamic internet hyperlinks in them. For those who click on on a hyperlink when studying on-line, it would lead you to chose internet pages. For instance, I’ll embed a hyperlink to final week’s column proper right here.
If the final 10 phrases of that sentence look totally different — akin to blue and underlined — you’re most likely studying this column at www.columbian.com. Not too long ago we have been speaking to the seller that produces our ePaper and have been advised it may do the identical factor. So we advised them to activate the dynamic hyperlinks starting on Tuesday.
Sadly the hyperlinks created a multitude the place the textual content was obscured by grey containers or was simply plain invisible. The seller was in a position to flip that function off straight away, and we have been again to establishment earlier than midday. Later, the seller mounted it, however Internet Editor Amy Libby says the state of affairs continues to be not preferrred.