So how do we bridge the "great divide" between the copy desk and the rest of the newsroom, particularly the assignment desk? The ACES Southern California chapter's organizational luncheon meeting May 16, 1998, held at the Los Angeles Times, offered 40 journalists the chance to vent, rant and even rationally discuss why tensions between the two groups remain so high.
A panel of assignment editors framed the discussion around that nagging question: Why can't the copy desk and city desk just get along? "I didn't appreciate what the copy desk did until I went from being a reporter to a copy editor," said Susan Jacobs, who now oversees coverage of medicine and science at the Orange County Register. Jacobs and other panelists touched repeatedly on that hottest of hot-button issues -- deadlines -- and how copy desks and assignment desks view them differently. Everyone, it seems, gets some wiggle room except the copy desk.
Assignment desks tend to see deadlines as goals. Copy editors see deadlines as brick walls, said Jim White, a hiring and development editor at the Los Angeles Times. These conflicting views can spark ugly confrontations. "I feel like the go-between in a schoolyard fracas," said Jim Medina, West County editor of the Ventura County Star, about being caught in the middle.
Adding to the squeeze: the multiple zoning of many suburban and metro dailies -- six, eight, even 12 editions. Panelists described logistical nightmares complete with obsessive record-keeping and Draconian penalties for missed deadlines. Imagine daily reports featuring pie charts showing missed deadlines in red. Detailed logs showing how late stories were coming from the city desk. The whining of reporters used to pushing deadlines now facing a drop-dead filing time. Non-breaking yet late-arriving stories killed to keep the train on time.
"The reporters wonder out loud: 'Are we in the news business or the newspaper production business?' " said Medina, whose paper publishes six zoned editions. Mike Castelvecchi, Metro deputy copy chief for the Los Angeles Times, offered this: "It's all a matter of perspective."
Ongoing training was frequently mentioned as a means of overcoming deadline angst. Panelists also described past initiatives by papers to create some common ground between the copy and assignment desks. Among them: brief stints on the copy desk for new reporters and editors, painstakingly planned copy-flow systems and organizational changes pairing copy editors with reporters from story inception through publication.
Each initiative has its pros and cons, panelists said. But encouraging
words beat pie charts any day. "Our copy desk is awesome!" said
Susan Jacobs. "They save our butts -- every day."
