Discussions Center on More Administrative Aspects

Tuesday is a day that I try to devote to longer-term stories and administrative matters. This is important because the end of the week is so hectic with daily and weekend sections to put out.

Today, the non-deadline part of my day was divided between three things: production staffing discussions with a managing editor; story conferencing and editing on an upcoming project about job retraining; and fine-tuning a new Monday feature we plan to launch that focuses on businesses adapting to economic turmoil.

I don't want to share too many details on the project and staffing discussions are boring, so I'll only explain the new Monday feature.

Most newspapers struggle with story length, and even more struggle to get good business photos. This new weekly feature, which we plan to label Economic Snapshot, is an attempt to address both of these intractable issues at the same time. It will be contained to the cover and be built around a photo of activity that depicts something unique at the business - its product, decor, clientele, whatever. The story will only be about 5 inches, but it'll be news driven and hone in specifically on one thing the business is doing to adapt to economic circumstances. It sounds simple but has proven very difficult to do well. With changes we made today, I think we're almost there.

As to Wednesday's section, it was another newsy day for us. The centerpiece is on Nike's latest sales and earnings forecast and how the troubles of footwear retailers might affect the company. We already had planned a centerpiece on the retailers but had to adapt when Nike forecasted surprisingly strong financial numbers, giving its stock price a healthy bump.

The lede is a settlement between Weyerhaeuser and the alder mills we wrote about Tuesday. Good thing they didn't settle before we got the Tuesday story in the paper. Downpage we have a story on a local pacemaker manufacturer that won an important ruling from the Federal Communications Commission. Why the FCC? The pacemaker uses a wireless device to send messages to doctors. We also had another story from the D.C. bureau, this one on Senate testimony by an executive at Harry & David, a leading Oregon mail order company, on the importance of the U.S. Postal Service to his business.

Hopefully the run of news will continue Wednesday.

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism