Off-site copy desks: A bad idea that keeps spreading

It seems like the newspaper industry is run by a lot of people who are as dumb as former Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott. The controversial owner once fired a bunch of scouts, declaring that there was no need to pay people "just to watch games."

No, it only matters if you really care about winning. A few bucks saved and many more errors likely.

Newspaper executives appear to be wondering why they should pay so many people "just to read stories." The "thinking" appears to be that you don't need many copy editors. And if you must pay for copy editors, it doesn't matter where they are working or that their workload doubles or triples.

No, it only matters if you really care about a quality product. A few bucks saved and many more errors likely.

In just a couple of weeks, the two biggest newspapers in the Triangle -- the Raleigh News & Observer and the Durham Herald-Sun (one of my former employers) -- will have no copy editors or designers on site. At least McClatchy is shifting the N&O's production across the state to the Charlotte Observer. The Paxton Media Group is moving Durham's production to the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer in Kentucky.

This sad trend just keeps gaining momentum as the bean counters see that money spent on copy editors and designers can be reduced significantly by consolidating operations. Tribune apparently is very happy with the results of its model used at the Daily Press in Newport News, Va.

I was a layoff victim of that plan, which uses many "modules" produced in Chicago. While much of the copy editing and designing is done in Chicago, at least there is some copy editing and designing of local pages (or portions of pages) done in Newport News. Tribune liked this model so much that it's putting it into place at the Hartford Courant.

The N&O and Herald-Sun aren't even the first big North Carolina newspapers to decide that saving money is more important than quality. Media General Inc. laid off the entire Winston-Salem Journal copy desk last year, shifting those duties to out-of-state consolidated desks.

The copy-desk duties for two eastern North Carolina newspapers in the Freedom Communications Inc. chain -- the Kinston Free Press (one of my former papers) and the New Bern Sun-Journal -- are performed at a consolidated desk at the Jacksonville Daily News (another of my former papers.)

Even though the distance between these newspapers is short, there are still mistakes made because a copy editor sitting in Jacksonville may not understand that intricacies or what a story means for Kinston or New Bern.

Sometimes the mistakes are very simple and can make the newspaper look really stupid. An example came at the Danville Register & Bee, which is produced at a Media General consolidated desk in Lynchburg.

A 5-year-old boy drowned in the Dan River, but a subhead read: "Boat flips over in James River, trapping 5-year-old boy underwater." The problem, of course, is that the James doesn't run through Danville. The James does run through Lynchburg, where a copy editor mistakenly typed the wrong river name.

The sad news from Durham came this week, leading to more copy editors being laid off. A news copy editor was kept on, but as a sportswriter. McClatchy gave N&O copy editors the option of taking jobs in Charlotte. Few Raleigh desk people took that option, but at least the choice was offered. Paxton gave Herald-Sun copy editors no such opportunity.

Many hard-working copy editors and designers have been shown the door, and a substantial amount of institutional knowledge went with them.

You can't tell me that someone in Owensboro, Ky., knows anything about the issues that are important to Durham readers. A mistake that would be easy to catch for a copy editor who lives in the Durham area might not look wrong at all to a copy editor in Owensboro.

My sympathy is with the fine people being laid off as well as the survivors who are being forced to deal with crazy decisions and even crazier deadlines.

If newspaper executives think that errors still will be caught, they're right. Many will be caught ... by people reading their local paper and wondering how that sort of mistake wasn't caught. And they'll probably wonder why they are paying for a print edition of substantially less quality than the one they received years ago.

As sad as I am about the Carolina football situation, what's happening in the newspaper industry makes me even sadder. The UNC football program will no doubt bounce back eventually. I'm not so sure about the newspaper industry. (Which reminds me: the Herald-Sun might want to update the picture on this page.)

UPDATE: About two weeks after this was posted (as you can see from the link), The Herald-Sun finally updated its UNC page with Everett Withers' picture replacing the picture of Butch Davis.

Going without caffeine not as much of a jolt as I thought

In the wake of my heart excitement last month, probably the biggest adjustment I've made is -- at least for now -- eliminating my consumption of caffeinated drinks.

In my follow-up visit to the doctor, she asked about how much caffeine I consumed per day. My caffeinated choice for years has been Mountain Dew (with on occasional Cherry Coke), and I easily drank between 24 and 36 ounces (or more) of it per day and have done so for years.

I also have taken my share of Vivarin over the years when I was behind in my sleep or just had a high-energy day ahead.

Given what happened last month, she didn't say that I had to give up caffeine, but suggested that I limit myself to 12 ounces of caffeinated drinks per day. For a couple of days, I had about 4 or 6 ounces of it in the morning and it didn't seem to be much of an adjustment. So I decided that if limiting caffeine would be helpful, why not just give it up all together?

As of this writing, I've had no caffeinated beverages since July 13. It's no doubt the longest I've gone without caffeinated drinks since I first was allowed to drink them when I was a kid.

For the first week, oddly, I had trouble sleeping. It seemed illogical that eliminating caffeine would lead to sleep issues so I don't think it was related. Luckily, I've slept pretty well since then so that hasn't been an issue. As much Mountain Dew as I used to drink, I always made sure not to drink any after 5 p.m. for fear that I wouldn't be able to go to sleep when I wanted to go to sleep.

Sleep always has been a bit of an issue, and being a very light sleeper doesn't help. For years, I've taken Melatonin about an hour before I want to fall asleep to help me do so.

I'm drinking lots of water, which probably is a lot better for me and it's a lot less expensive as well. (For the life of me, I don't understand why people ever PAY for water.) Particularly with the heat we've dealt with this summer, I'm drinking Gatorade before and after runs for the electrolytes. But otherwise, I'm just drinking a lot of water.

For years, I couldn't imagine not waking up to a tall glass of Mountain Dew in the morning. I know that caffeine can be addictive for some people, but I've found that it was more than we well-established habit on my part than an addiction.

I know lots of people, including Jean, get headaches if they go without caffeine. I've heard some people have a miserable time in the first days after giving up caffeine, but I'm lucky that I haven't dealt with any of those issues.

I still might drink a little Mountain Dew if I'm really behind on my sleep, but at this point I'm going to still try to go completely without it.

My only concern is what this all will do to the Pepsico Inc. stock price. The drop of revenue because I may never again buy Mountain Dew has got to send the price plummeting.

If you have Pepsico Inc. stock, my advice is to sell.

Run altered by police instructions

Given the heat we've endured lately in central North Carolina, I was having a pretty pleasant run Sunday morning. It was fairly cloudy and, although it was pretty hot, it could have been a lot worse. I'm still out of shape, but at least I'm making some progress.

I am nearing the end of a 10.3-mile run and less than two miles from my house when I see flashing lights about a block away. When I get there, I see that police have closed the cross street (a one-way street) to the left of where I am running. I see a lot of police and emergency vehicles and wonder what is going on.

But I keep going and notice two K-9 unit officers in a slow jog just in front of me on the sidewalk, following their dog. Suddenly the dog stops and sniffs at the ground. As I pass the officers, I ask, "what's going on?" 

Rather than tell me what is going on, the officer asked where I was going. He doesn't seem thrilled with me running down that sidewalk. I tell him that I lived just down the road in the direction I was running and that I was hoping to run home. He instructs me to take a right and run around this section of road. I never had run down that street before, so that is a little unnerving.

Also unnerving is wondering if there is an armed suspect loose. I have no idea. I take the right, as instructed, and take the first left that I can. There were officers there, and at the next intersection where I took another left.

I finally get back on the original road and looked back to see those same officers about a half block back. At least I was fairly confident that I was running away from whatever trouble there was. But then a couple of more blocks down, there is a police car with his lights flashing at the side of the road. When I run by that car, the officer had wasn't in it.

I get home and wonder what the story was. Finally, later Sunday morning, I saw this story on the website of one of the local TV stations. Some guy's car collided with a police car and he ran away from the scene.

I guess I'm just lucky that he wasn't balding with a beard. 

My only other memorable contact with an officer was during the Charlotte Marathon one year when it was 14 degrees at the start. I was wearing a Balaclava, and the officer said jokingly, "There is our suspect."

Let's hope my next contact with an officer during a run is more like that!