This *isn't* necessary.

jbm · **Posted:** Sat Feb 22, 2003 5:52 pm

From my hometown newspaper:---------------
You see Amanda Reiter’s work — but never her name — nearly every day on the front page of the Abilene Reporter-News. Reiter designs pages, piecing together the stories reporters write, the photos photographers shoot and the graphics that artists draft on the blank canvas of a front page. Her aim is to create a page that is eye-catching, clean and easy to read. Reiter, 24, joined the Reporter-News full time in 2000 after graduating from Abilene Christian University. Having previously worked for the newspaper as a part-time photographer, she still dabbles in photography, shooting some of the photos for local author Glenn Dromgoole’s book What Horses Teach Us.
-------------------A Q&A with Ms. Reiter follows. Can anyone think of an explanation for this? The paper doesn't give one -- at least online.[ February 22, 2003: Message edited by: blanp ]

aneye4detail · **Posted:** Sat Feb 22, 2003 6:17 pm

What's the problem?

jbm · **Posted:** Sat Feb 22, 2003 6:26 pm

Profiles of staff in the newspaper? Well, for one thing they could be filling that space with, let's say, news.

SusanV · **Posted:** Sat Feb 22, 2003 8:30 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by jbm:
Profiles of staff in the newspaper? Well, for one thing they could be filling that space with, let's say, news.<hr></blockquote>I don't see anything wrong with it. Now, if they'd run that at the expense of some major news story I might have a different opinion, but I'd be willing to bet that's not the case. You can pooh-pooh it, but Joe Reader eats those pieces up. By and large, people not involved in the news business are fascinated by behind-the-sceners.

jmcg · **Posted:** Sat Feb 22, 2003 9:12 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by SusanV:
I don't see anything wrong with it. Now, if they'd run that at the expense of some major news story I might have a different opinion, but I'd be willing to bet that's not the case. You can pooh-pooh it, but Joe Reader eats those pieces up. By and large, people not involved in the news business are fascinated by behind-the-sceners.<hr></blockquote>Wary as I am of speaking for Joe Reader,
of central Texas, I wonder if you aren't doing him a disservice here. Not sure entirely because I don't know him. I do know that his cousin, of
upstate New York, tends to have much broader interests. He might take mild umbrage, in fact, at being portrayed as a newsroom nerd, or, worse, a newsroom nerd wannabe. If your Joe, and his kin, really wanted to read things like Q&As with the woman who lays out page one at the Daily Bugle, wouldn't the whole lot of them be members
of TCE, all over the Poynter site etc.?Can you really imagine your Joe knocking back longnecks at the local roadhouse with, say, the Ryan kid who just bored so many of us, even, with his story of getting his first newspaper job?And if your Joe ever got stuck on a hike in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts with Rinker Buck ... well, ain't it comforting to know that he would have had the foresight to bring his side arm along?[ February 22, 2003: Message edited by: jmcg ][ February 22, 2003: Message edited by: jmcg ]

thmrit · **Posted:** Sat Feb 22, 2003 9:20 pm

It depends on where it runs. It makes as much sense as a business column we run about local individuals and their jobs. And if it's run instead of a POD it has more value then: "Advertise Your Yard Sale and get the kit for a successful yard sale."

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Sun Feb 23, 2003 1:21 am

I think everyone is forgetting, or didn't notice, that Amanda Reiter is no ordinary layout person. She has jumped out of an airplane.Ms. Reiter invites your criticism.

thmrit · **Posted:** Sun Feb 23, 2003 1:42 am

and she has it on video....still if she didn't jump out of an airplane while laying out a page in quark it's just not news.

jbm · **Posted:** Sun Feb 23, 2003 5:58 pm

Update: My mother informs me that in the print version, readers are told that this is part of a weekly series on the people who put the newspaper together. Nice, but still not necessary.

dmfugitive · **Posted:** Sun Feb 23, 2003 6:48 pm

I can see how readers would like to know how their paper gets made ... How did you go about designing the front page telling of the shuttle disaster? People started telling me their ideas and I sort of meshed them together to create the final product. ... but come on.

Bumfketeer · **Posted:** Sun Feb 23, 2003 11:39 pm

What jbm seems to be saying it that this stuff is bumf. I agree.I think "The Reader" does have some degree of curiosity as to how the paper comes together. But, being civilians, they don't have a very high level of interest nor a particularly long attention span when it comes to how the paper is manufactured.After I won a headline writing contest, the editor of the paper trotted me in front of a group and then astonished me by asking me to "describe the thought process of how the headline was written." I decided to be merciful and said, "It was so long ago that I don't remember."Back to the point: Don't do profiles of the people who work at the paper. I've jumped out of airplanes too, but it's only of interest to me.

Karenna Awtry · **Posted:** Tue Feb 25, 2003 9:28 pm

But perhaps there is some public service to be had in informing readers about the newspaper process. Seems that all the "civilians" I talk to automatically think I'm a reporter when I say I work at a newspaper. And those who call our newsroom at night appear to believe we control all media, including what Dan Rather says on television."But perhaps there is some public service to be had in informing readers about the newspaper process." -- Geez, what am I thinking?

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