WHAT’S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

This is how Tom Jolly, the Sports editor of the New York Times, refers to the day-to-day work in his section.

A perfect summary of how the newsroom management of an “information engine” (before called a newspaper) is evolving in the new 24/7 multimedia news landscape.

Jolly has been an editor at The Times since 1993. He has served as a copy editor, assistant sports editor and assistant news editor. Before joining The Times he was a reporter and editor at newspapers in Ohio, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

“The Daily Miracle

Q. Could you please describe how The New York Times sports section is put together on a typical evening in the newsroom and how various responsibilities are divided? I’m sure it’s a fascinating process requiring a good deal of planning.

— Bob Liepa

A. Dear Mr. Liepa: Sometimes, it’s a piece of cake. Sometimes, it’s a small miracle. Sometimes we say, “If readers could see this, they wouldn’t believe it …”

Seriously, thanks for this question. It gives me a chance to say a little bit about the fantastic people I’m fortunate enough to work with.

Keep in mind, we’re not putting the newspaper together every day, we’re putting a Web page and a newspaper together every day. It’s not the same thing and it requires a lot of choreography with our reporters, columnists, editors, photographers, Web producers, graphic artists, art directors and page designers.

On the Web, we’ve got blogs, video, audio, slide shows and other Web-exclusive elements as well as the stories that go in the paper. Much of the planning and implementation for the Web is handled by Jeffrey Marcus, our supremely talented and dedicated daytime producer.

We’ve also got a crew of editors who start early and help orchestrate what stories will go onto the Web and into the paper each day. Others come in as the day evolves to edit stories, write headlines and picture captions and handle the production of the newspaper end of things.

In truth, of course, what we do isn’t confined to individual days; it involves long-term planning. The 24-7 nature of our Web site means that we’ve broken the old day-to-day cycle that producing only a morning newspaper once created.

Our coverage of the Clemens hearings is an example of that. Our reporters Duff Wilson and Michael Schmidt have been leading the way in covering that story, breaking news on the Web day after day and, at the end of each day, distilling it all into stories for what the business-side folks now refer to as our print product but which we still like to call the newspaper.

On Tuesday, Harvey Araton wrote a Web-only column on three questions he would ask Clemens if he were a congressman at the hearing.

Today, Alan Schwarz blogged from the hearing to give readers a live running assessment of what was going on. At the same time, we provided steaming video provided by A.P.

Shortly after the hearings end, our reporters will post their first reports of the hearings, then they’ll get to work on the stories they’ll write for the newspaper. If they encounter more news along the way, they’ll update the Web versions of their articles.

Separately, editors Sandy Keenan, Jay Schreiber, Jason Stallman and Mike Abrams will be planning the rest of the day, both in regard to what else we’ll put on the Web and what will go in the paper. The trick there is that, unlike the Web, we have a limited amount of space for what goes into the newspaper — roughly the equivalent of six full pages worth of articles, photos and other information. Because of that, we have to prioritize which articles go when and how long certain articles will be. That equation is constantly changing, of course, because news develops in unforeseen ways.

In the afternoon and early evening a fresh crew of editors led by Carl Nelson, Jim Luttrell, Toni Monkovic and Rich Ehrhard come in and take over the process of putting the paper together.

There are four deadlines each night — 9:30 for the first national edition, 10:30 for the first city edition, 11:30 for the second edition of both papers and 12:30 for the final city edition. Obviously, live events are ending throughout that time period and depending on the significance of those events, our front page — we call it our dress page — may be torn up and redone, often on the fly, which also means inside pages must be redrawn as well.

It’s often an amazing sight to see and on nights when big events are happening, like Super Bowl Sunday, it’s marvelous to behold.”

Crazy?

Well, good journalism never was an easy job.

The one product, one deadline, only print news business is gone.

Welcome to the newsroom management of the present and the future!

(Thanks to INNOVATION’s Gabriel Sama)