Is this for real???

Guest · **Posted:** Fri Jan 10, 2003 4:26 pm

The Marco Island Eagle has an opening for a full-time page editor/clerk. Duties include pagination of newspaper pages using the Harris system on PC and Quark Xpress on MacIntosh and general typing of correspondence, news briefs and letters. Some public contact is involved. Computer, design and typing skills are essential as is a good command of English grammar and punctuation. High school diploma plus experience in the newspaper or printing industry is required. *** Does any newspaper you know of have this sort of bizarre split job function?

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Fri Jan 10, 2003 5:11 pm

At some papers, "paginators" are clerks who put together pages drawn and edited by others. Often a job for former pasteup artists.This one is an interesting split of duties, though.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Sat Jan 11, 2003 1:29 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Wayne Countryman:
At some papers, "paginators" are clerks who put together pages drawn and edited by others. <hr></blockquote>In Chicago I briefly worked under such a system. I liked it. The news editor, or I, if I was filling in for him, would "draw" Page One and would leave inside "design" to the paginators, subject to approval. Never got an argument. With one or two notable exceptions, most of the "paginators" were not qualified to be real editors.
Then management thought it would be ideal for one person to do both jobs, and ... well, that's another story for another forum.[ January 11, 2003: Message edited by: blanp ]

bwalsh · **Posted:** Sat Jan 11, 2003 2:51 am

Having one person design the page and another person paginate it defeats the major non-business-side advantage of pagination, which is the ability to work with actual type and actual art rather than an abstract representation of those things. A competent layout editor can "draw" on a computer screen faster than on a sheet of paper, and then the drawing is done. Why choose to do it twice?Having said that, I'll grant that the way-too-labor-intensive nature of the pagination systems that The Washington Post and many other major newspapers have adopted makes it tempting to free up talented people to do things other than baby-sit computer screens.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Sat Jan 11, 2003 3:20 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Bill Walsh:
Having one person design the page and another person paginate it defeats the major non-business-side advantage of pagination ...
<hr></blockquote>True in most cases. In Chicago, though, drawing Page One in pencil took about two minutes (not much you can do with a tabloid page), and there were "paginators" you would not trust to get a lunch order straight.As far as being able to do it all faster on a computer screen, I could lay out an entire paper in pencil in the time it would take a "paginator" to do three pages, not that I enjoyed doing so.My model for small newspapers includes hiring a Mac jockey with the English skills of an elementary school teacher and have him or her do nothing -- and I mean nothing -- but lay out pages and leave the editors alone.I do not wish to demean the skills of a good layout person. I know Walsh disagrees with my firm belief that copy-editing and layout can't be done properly simultaneously by any but the most disciplined of editors.[ January 11, 2003: Message edited by: blanp ]

tim · **Posted:** Sat Jan 11, 2003 3:22 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Bill Walsh:
Having one person design the page and another person paginate it defeats the major non-business-side advantage of pagination, which is the ability to work with actual type and actual art rather than an abstract representation of those things. A competent layout editor can "draw" on a computer screen faster than on a sheet of paper, and then the drawing is done. Why choose to do it twice?<hr></blockquote>I can see where having one person design and edit a page and another paginate it can be an advantage, particularly for a designer/editor who might have many other duties, common at papers like the one in Marco Island.But the major problem isn't designers and editors who are now also paginators. It's former paste-up folks who have become designers and editors. I know of papers where this has happened after the transformation and would guess it is somewhat common at small papers.And having done both, I can say pencil on paper was faster than "drawing" on a computer screen, but far less desirable. A last-minute change of plans in the old days was a disaster of HOLY SHIT proportions. Now, it merits just a dammit or two.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Sat Jan 11, 2003 4:40 am

I want designers with editing ability and news judgment, but agree with Bill Walsh on hating to see talented editors baby-sit a computer all night.I want editors and designers with reporting experience, and reporters with editing and designing experience; i want a pagination system that's a tool and not a taskmaster; i want a masseuse, dogs that fetch and real Guinness on tap in the newsroom.Actually, I want to be a publisher. Maybe even in Montana.I'd settle for a good pagination system.

Finn DeSiecle · **Posted:** Sat Jan 11, 2003 5:34 pm

I've done it both ways -- pagination by editors and pagination by "paginators" (though paginator/typist is a combination I've never seen before). To a large extent, it depends on (a) how the desk can be organized and (b) how the computer systems work.My first paper was a very small (i.e., dying) one with a proportionally small desk (three people toward the end). One of the three did advance reads; the other two, working on editing-cum-pagination tubes, laid out the stories on screen then did final editing and headlining on the fly.Another paper had a pagination-editing system that, while somewhat crude, was well organized: the stories could be laid out on the page first, then sent to the rim queue. The story would "remember" the size and shape of its layout, so the system would even show the rim editor how much of the copy needed to be cut. This system let the section slots do the layouts onscreen, then "slot" an entire page once its stories had come back from the rim.But after that, I took a step back: my next company -- significantly larger than either of the previous two -- had different editing and pagination systems, with no real way to return story files to the editing system once sent to pagination. The approach there was to train "editorial technicians" (some from the composing room) to paginate from paper layouts, after which an editor made cuts as needed and fixed any mistakes caught on the paper proof. (Separate "page designer" positions were also created for designing cover layouts -- on screen.)Unwieldy? Yup. But so far it's been my experience that the larger the paper, the harder and costlier it is to redesign jobs and upgrade the hardware, even for efficiency's sake. I've begun to suspect that as a general rule, many smaller (say, 50K circulation or lower) newspapers may have an edge on innovation over the larger ones.

Guest · **Posted:** Sat Jan 11, 2003 6:17 pm

Having worked most of my career at small- to mid-size dailies where the copy-editing and paginating functions were inevitably combined, I can say that it's easy to make pagination complementary to the copy-editing process in a time-efficient manner. Simply put, I pencil out a page over a couple of minutes, give a second read to each of the stories for that page, then read them over AGAIN as I lay them out on the page, on my computer. I almost always catch something new during that second of second reads. Once you settle into the split-function job, you learn to pace yourself well enough that not much gets missed and an orderly flow of copy and pages in ensured. I prefer this system -- it soothes the control-freak in me who isn't willing to let somebody less competent or qualified be the last set of editing eyes on a page. (Not that I'm perfect, but having my job pretty well demands that I think I am at times!)

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Sun Jan 12, 2003 5:25 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Jim Thomsen:
Having worked most of my career at small- to mid-size dailies where the copy-editing and paginating functions were inevitably combined, I can say that it's easy to make pagination complementary to the copy-editing process in a time-efficient manner. Simply put, I pencil out a page over a couple of minutes, give a second read to each of the stories for that page, then read them over AGAIN as I lay them out on the page, on my computer. I almost always catch something new during that second of second reads. Once you settle into the split-function job, you learn to pace yourself well enough that not much gets missed and an orderly flow of copy and pages in ensured. I prefer this system -- it soothes the control-freak in me who isn't willing to let somebody less competent or qualified be the last set of editing eyes on a page. (Not that I'm perfect, but having my job pretty well demands that I think I am at times!)<hr></blockquote>I had a job with pagination in which i laid out pages and served as a wire editor and/or slot editor and perhaps did some rimming and/or worked directly with reporters, too. In time i got better at dealing with the combination of duties, but i was never satisfied that i was doing any of the duties as well as i should, so i left for a job in which i could specialize. Sometimes I miss the variety and the sick thrill of juggling duties, but overall i prefer concentrating on one or two a night.I've always hated situations where i didn't have someone either reading ahead of me or behind me. Even if someone might not be quite as good as the person or i thought i was, that doesn't mean the person couldn't occasionally find a problem i missed or even created. Also, i agree with thought expressed in this thread that pagination tends to be more troublesome for larger papers -- or at least that it lowers the quality of editing of them more than it does smaller papers'.

KfitzR · **Posted:** Mon Jan 13, 2003 11:28 am

This is a fascinating discussion, and it got me thinking. Any of you folks remember hot type?
You know, editing with pencils on paper? Having the composing room bounce heads back? The desk cliche that there is no such thing as rubber type?
The discussion here about the desireability of various approaches could not even have happened. It quite simply would not have crossed people's minds that it was possible. Suddenly I feel terribly old!

Bumfketeer · **Posted:** Mon Jan 13, 2003 4:24 pm

Yeah, Fitz. I was around for that stuff.I can't do a comparison because I've resisted pagination "training" and work solely on wordside.The thing that gets to me about the transition from pencil-and-stick (and yes, I worked in hot type at a small paper for a little while) to pagination is that some papers seem to think it means a. no compositors and b. fewer copy editors.Um, it doesn't quite work that way.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Mon Jan 13, 2003 5:20 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Bumfketeer:
The thing that gets to me about the transition from pencil-and-stick (and yes, I worked in hot type at a small paper for a little while) to pagination is that some papers seem to think it means a. no compositors and b. fewer copy editors.Um, it doesn't quite work that way.<hr></blockquote>It sure doesn't. But that's what pagination system makers want publishing executives to believe, and the executives are all too eager to believe.I worked with a night city editor who would get annoyed that the copy desk couldn't make a million changes every edition after moving to pagination. After all, he said, managers had been told it would be much easier than it used to be. He figured there would be a pagination "button" that would make everything fit magically.Other managers confirmed that they'd been told the copy desk would be able to do more. At a previous employer, the city editor, who knew nothing about computers or copy editing, announced at a staff meeting that he agreed with upper management that no more copy editors would be needed when we went to pagination. That prediction was off by a mile; the system was so fouled up that another edition was eliminated and the copy desk was ordered to make its deadlines even if it meant leaving white space where the page 1 lead story was supposed to run.
We refused to do that, of course, and the managing editor who was trying to help management see the problem from the copy desk's view was pushed out -- replaced by the ignorant city editor.[ January 13, 2003: Message edited by: Wayne Countryman ]

JimDeLa · **Posted:** Fri Jan 17, 2003 2:36 pm

I always did copyediting and design/pagination at the same time in my 20 years on news desksâ€¦ I actually think switching back and forth helps keep me focused. One of the fastest systems I ever used was one of the first â€“ We called them â€œsmartâ€ dummies, that used lines of our standard body type as the vertical measurement. (A photo would be, say, 36 picas wide by 63 lines deep). That way a rim editor would be told to edit a story set at a 14-pica width to 123 lines or whatever â€¦ And the pages would always fit. The worst was at a union paper. Weâ€™d do an entire page in Quark and output the page at 100 percent broadsheet size. The composing room would then be REQUIRED to cut the page apart, wax it and REPASTE it together again before it could go to the plate room.

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