Small shop generates 13 good ideas a week.ONE GOOD IDEA is enough for a lifetime if you're the inventor of the Frisbee or the Hula-Hoop. If you're the editorial writer at a small daily, however, one good idea will barely get you through lunch. You need 13 good ideas. A week. The Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., circulates 50,000 on weekdays and 65,000 on Sundays. That's only enough copies to support a two-person editorial-page shop. The captain is Bill Griffith Bill Griffith (born William Henry Jackson Griffith in Brooklyn, NY 1944) is a popular cartoonist in the United States. He is best known for his comic strip Zippy the Pinhead. , associate editor. The crew is the editorial writer -- and when I say "the" writer, I mean "the," as in "only," "uno," "over-worked." That's me. Like I said, 13 good editorial ideas a week. But I can't think of a better job. My sole responsibility is to come up with, research, and write the week's editorials, which include two for most weekdays, one for Saturday and Monday, and three for Sunday. At 10 a.m. I go to Bill with a list of ideas. (On Thursdays, I present a more formal list to our editorial board, which includes the publisher and three other top editors. That's when we talk over especially controversial or contentious issues.) Bill and I go over my list for about 45 minutes to an hour. His lifetime in Wilkes-Barre and 37 years at The Times Leader dwarf my 12 months here, so this is probably the most important hour of the day. Then I spend the afternoon putting my two best ideas into words. On Fridays, make that my five best ideas. I hate Fridays. No subject is off-limits for our editorials. I believe strongly that editorials should touch on all aspects of life, from the jangle of a morning alarm to the quiet of an evening prayer. The goings-on at City Hall are just one small slice of that spectrum. Naturally, the publisher has the final say on the newspaper's editorial positions, but he very seldom exercises his prerogative An exclusive privilege. The special power or peculiar right possessed by an official by virtue of his or her office. In English Law, a discretionary power that exceeds and is unaffected by any other power; the special preeminence that the monarch has over and above all others, . He'd rather see our board reach a consensus on difficult issues. That way, we mirror the democratic process and, in my opinion, we give readers more realistic and practical advice than columnists often do. Bill puts our pages together. Besides a full editorial page every day and a full op-ed page on Sunday, we've got a half-page op-ed page Monday through Saturday, too. Bill selects the letters, picks the cartoons, edits the syndicated columns, writes the headlines, assembles the dummies, readies the "Today in History" features and the like, edits and headlines my editorials. (He reports and writes a Sunday column on local politics, too.) We don't have an "editorial page budget" to speak of. Our syndicated columns come straight out of the newsroom budget, and the newsroom secretary pays all the bills. We buy Mike Royko Michael "Mike" Royko (September 19, 1932 – April 29, 1997) was a longtime newspaper columnist in Chicago, Illinois. Young reporter Royko grew up in Chicago living in an apartment above a bar. His mother was of Polish descent and his father was of Ukrainian origins. , Jack Anderson
Jackson Northman Anderson (October 19, 1922 – December 17, 2005) was an American newspaper columnist and is considered one of the fathers of modern , Evans & Novak, Joan Beck, and Pat Buchanan  This article may be too long.Please discuss this issue on the talk page and help summarize or split the content into subarticles of an article series. , and we also subscribe to Verb 1. subscribe to - receive or obtain regularly; "We take the Times every day" subscribe, take buy, purchase - obtain by purchase; acquire by means of a financial transaction; "The family purchased a new car"; "The conglomerate acquired a new company"; the Knight-Ridder/Tribune and Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. wires. NCEW NCEW National Conference of Editorial Writers member Tom Dennis Tom A. Dennis was an English professional snooker and billiards player. Dennis reached the finale of the World Championship in 1927, 1929, 1930 and 1931 but was beaten every time by Joe Davis. is an editorial writer at The Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. |
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