Most of us newspaper folk are facing layoffs in our newsrooms.
I’m sure that most of us are (fairly) safe from these layoffs, but who can be sure?
Please share what you are doing to avoid being laid off, what it’s like in your newsroom, and how you are coping with shrinking staffs and lowering spirits?
In my newsroom, we’re all trying to keep each other spirited by talking about ideas for the web, newspaper and beyond. This keeps us moving forward, rather than focusing on lost buddies.

Q.
So I was hoping I could run something by you and the Generation J crowd. Work’s been pretty intense lately and I’m feeling the pressure.
About six months ago I had a bad two week stint where I had a couple errors and corrections. I freaked out, I met with the editors and talked about how to fix it.
I thought I had the problem beat, but now I’m struggling again with some of my copy.
I’m the early morning web guy before I work on stories during the day and in this instantaneous age of updates, there’s not much room to massage the web stories. Most of my problems now are with little stuff, mostly typos, plus it’s getting into my print stories. The editors are coming down hard and I’m getting stressed out.
One editor even quoted Hemingway, “The first draft of everything is ***.”
I know I probably just need to slow down, but it’s like the eds are expecting everything at once and I’m not sure how to handle it. Even if I produce A1 stories, the focus is coming down to the minor writing mistakes of redundancies or missing words on deadline.
Any thoughts?

A.
Thanks for the question! This is something I think many people feel right now with the new web deadlines of now, now, now.
My advice: don’t freak out over corrections – use them to stop and rethink how you are doing your job. If you just get stressed out by them and let them get you down – they’re liable to happen again. I know what you mean, though, by the stress of big stories for the newspaper and little stories, all the time for the web. The important thing is just to tell your editors that they need to back off the pressure enough so that you can be correct in your writing. If they are decent editors they’ll prefer you having better, more correct stories that take a few extra minutes to turn in for editing. Hope that helps.

Any other advice for this reporter?

What, exactly, is media?

When I think of media, I imagine newspapers at the center (my paper-centric POV comes out!) and magazines, news-gathering Web sites, newsletters, and broadcast news circle around, as if a newspaper is the planet and other forms of media are its many moons.

Now, I know this is far from correct, and hopefully you can forgive me, but seeing as I work at a daily and my main news consumption is focused on that my selfish minds-eye view makes some sense.

But there are so many different forms of media around.
Let’s start a list! Anyone can add to the list through the comments box. Suggested media will make their way into the post, attributed to the commenter

Media list:
Newspapers
Newsletters
Magazines
News-gathering Web sites
Television news
News-gathering blogs (Dale Denwalt II)
Radio broadcasts (Dale Denwalt II)
Online video (Brea Jones)

Now it’s your turn…

A topic from a regular reader:

I’m an avid Gen J reader, and I recently had an interesting e-mail
conversation with a former professor who was asking me about my career
and sort of where to go from my first job. I’m not on the hunt or
anything, but I am nearing the anniversary of when I started. She
asked a series of questions for reflection, and when I shared them
with some friends, they all had interesting takes.

I wondered if you’d like to blog about it to see what SPJ’ers think.
And if not, maybe they’ll just help you find focus as well:

“So, what is journalism to you? A career? A job ladder? A mission? A
calling? Who do you do it for?? Yourself? The community? The company?
Maybe clarifying this will help you figure out where you want to go.”
– Susan Brockus, California State University, Chico.

Take care,
First Draft reader (name excluded)

Well, reader, thanks for reading! And – a big thanks for the question.

For me, journalism is a calling and something I do for the community and myself.
To be more specific, I feel drawn to the profession (I’m an A++++ personality, a multi-tasker and someone who likes learning about many different topics). I practice journalism for the community (to provide factual, unbiased information so the public can make decisions based on those facts – rather than slanted information). I also practice journalism for myself – mainly because I get to learn about so many different things and I get to meet many different people (which keeps my brain quite occupied).

So please, everyone, chime in with your own answers! And, send in your questions for us too!

The lucky folks who work for media organizations rarely get holidays off. After all, people expect to read the news on holiday mornings, and someone’s gotta be there to put it all together!

Somehow I managed to convince my bosses that I should take this one off and head down to the Huntington Beach Fourth of July parade. So this year, instead of being holed up in our newsroom, I’ll be slathered in sunscreen riding my new beach cruiser and keeping my mind far from the notion of local news (and very close to the notion of a cold Corona on a hot day).

But if your mind should wander, check out the Freedom Forum and Reporters Without Borders. Read about journalists killed for what we do and be thankful we are still alive and able to publish.

I hope everyone has a safe and news-free holiday!

Seems to me more and more that setting priorities, staying organized and managing time is necessary to doing our jobs – and any jobs in the future.
I generally use the Frankling Covey planning system: define your roles (dance teacher, reporter, etc.), set overall goals for each role (months or years out), define specific things you must accomplish along the way to those goals (including due dates), and then set goals each week, and then each day spend 20 minutes planning out your day.
What do you all do to stay organized?