An object lesson for newspaper bean counters
Gee. Who would have thought that when newspapers cut costs to the bone there would be a serious decline in quality?
Fans who went to The Post’s Web site Monday to read Tom Boswell’s coverage of Sunday’s World Series game were treated to the same incisive, colorful copy they’ve come to expect from one of the nation’s premier baseball columnists.
But those who read Boswell in Monday morning’s newspaper encountered a mess. By my count, the column contained at least 20 typos, grammatical errors or misspellings.
So what happened?
The need to cut costs forced The Post to close its College Park printing facility some months ago and consolidate operations at its other printing plant in Springfield. That, coupled with the need to deliver papers to subscribers who now begin their commutes earlier due to worsening traffic congestion, have resulted in deadlines being moved forward.
Sunday’s thrilling Game 4 in Philadelphia ended shortly before midnight, and Boswell filed his story at 12:07 a.m. Crafted literally as the game was unfolding in the exciting late innings, the story came in rough. And it was longer than the allotted space, leaving editors to try to edit and significantly trim it within about 20 minutes while they also edited and packaged other World Series stories and stats. Editors hit the button on Boswell’s column at 12:25 a.m., just shy of the 12:30 a.m. final copy deadline. They knew it had received only cursory editing, but the alternative was to hold it out of the paper. That would have angered readers who have come to rely on Boswell’s keen insights.
The technology of printing on paper in inherently inferior to distribution online. When a news organization distributes news on paper, that means ALL the news has to be printed at the same time, and it has to be printed the day before most readers read it. That’s because it takes time to print and distribute the bundles to those people who deliver the paper door-to-door. By hand.
A sports column can be “printed” online one sentence or one paragraph at a time. A typos isn’t permanent, and can be fixed in a minute. In fact, this article so full of typos on paper looks brilliant on line.
We call it “liveblogging.”
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
