Inventing Reality: My Editing Experience

n Position: Managing Editor

n When: 2006-2007

n Where: Crescent City, Calif.

n Duties:

s Staff - Measured and monitored productivity of nine staff members (five reporters, two editors, one photographer, one intern); enforced newspaper policies; trained staff in AP/company styles and journalism skills; implemented procedures to create efficient newsroom operation

s News content – Ensured timely, accurate, balanced and thorough local news coverage across various print and online platforms; maintain daily news budgets

s Budget – Oversaw $250,000-plus departmental budget

s Departmental planning – Wrote and implemented weekly, monthly and yearly departmental plans; coordinated between newsroom and other departments on varying projects from special section production to circulation drives

s Editorial pages – Wrote daily editorials through discussion with publisher; oversaw editorial page production; wrote weekly column about newspaper’s coverage

s Outreach - Represented the newspaper in the community through coffees and attendance of local civic club meetings; represented the newspaper in the industry by attending conventions and workshops

s Coordination with sister papers – Planned and shared coverage of news events and special projects with other papers in our company

s Management team – Sat on operating committee, discussed and planned projects and issues that are inter-departmental or affect the newspaper as a whole

n Achievements:

s Award-winning staff – My newsroom won eight awards in the 2006 California Newspaper Publisher’s Association Better Newspaper Contest; the awards ranged from our coverage of business, breaking news, government and features to the design and content of the paper’s front and editorial pages

s More local news content – The amount of local news in our paper more than doubled while improving in quality and variety

s Cost-effective department – My department spent under its budget by about 1 percent a month

s Improved quality through planning – Through long-term planning and implementation of projects, we redesigned the front page and various sections, based on industry trends and reader input, to ensure readers can get the kind of news they want in the way they like it

s Leadership through our editorial page – We wrote a daily editorial on a local topic and launched a “10 Issues to Address” platform for which we seek local residents and experts to write columns about

s Extensive outreach – The newsroom frequently and regularly interacted with local civic, business and government leaders and readers through coffees, luncheons and guest-speaking appearances

s Mutually beneficial relations with our sister papers – We coordinated and shared coverage of news events and special projects with our neighboring sister paper and with a company news bureau staff in Washington, D.C.

s Outstanding relations with other departments – While maintaining a wall to ensure objectivity, we improved efficiency of advertising-driven special sections, improved printing production quality and used marketing information to adjust content and design

s Reader’s respect – The most frequent comment I heard from people in the community was “The paper has never been better!” The proof was a 6.6 percent increase in subscriptions during my tenure and a 56 percent increase in monthly hits on our Web site

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