Questions for Hard-Core Fans

Is it possible that, back in the day, a single big-city newspaper would print morning and late editions? {shrug} Anyway, I too get the impression the Trib puts out morning editions. Data: 1) Isn't there a guy in slippers drinking coffee in the opening sequence? 2) There's an episode where the guy with a newspaper stand is an about-to-be-discovered artist. I got the impression Lou was always stopping by the stand on his way in to work and that he could get copies of the Trib there (though he could get a copy once he got into work).

Anyway, regarding the editors... Charlie was managing editor. I don't know anything about newspaper operations but wouldn't that be the highest raking editor with the most 9-5ish, highly administrative work duties of the editorial staff? Sure, if something big and dicey were to come up, he'd probably get a call... but that would probably be pretty rare. Lou appears to be near the top of the next tier of editors. He presumably doesn't rate that distinction based on seniority at the Trib and, as noted in another post here, I'm not sure he scores bonus points for his time in TV news - Lou was a newspaper man before WJM. So, I'm not sure to what extent Lou is a "high ranking cabinet member" because he's a trusted personal friend of Charlie and to what extent it's because the Metro/City section is probably the most important section of the Trib.

At any rate, being fiarly high ranking, I'd imagine Lou also has somewhat regular hours though he's more likely to be called in on late-breaking story decisions. Art is Lou's assistant Metro editor. Although we see Lou editing copy on occasion, we see Art doing it more. He's probably more "in the trenches" as an editor than Lou or Charlie. Additionally, I think I recall a scene that seemed to be Art hading over the reins to the "night guy." So my guess is that there are a minimum of 2 or 3 assistant editors (morning/evening or 1st, 2nd & 3rd shift). So I'm guessing the night shift assistant editor (not Donovan who had the day shift) would handle routine late breaking stories and would call Lou for desisions outside his pay grade and Lou, in turn, would call in Charlie, for really big stuff. The show does come off as having more chiefs than indians, but I'm not sure with a city as big as LA having Art, Lou and harlie all working days is unreasonable.

Is it?

I definitely recall that the Trib was a morning paper. I think most big-town newspapers are morning papers, which generally impose a midnight, or thereabouts, deadline for stories. I suppose a managing editor could leave early, as long as he/she is available by phone. But someone with decision-making authority has to be available up to deadline. And hands-on editors would have to be there to clean up and insert any last-minute copy. As suggested by the poster above, at bigger papers, there could be a "late shift" of editors that comes in after the first-string goes home.

Also, the poster above has it right about relative ranks. The managing editor is the highest-ranking staffer, and would answer to the publisher, or owner. The city, or "metro" editor, the position held by Lou, would be next in the chain of command, regardless of seniority. At big papers, like the Trib, there would also be a national news editor, an entertainment news editor, etc. But they all rank below the city/metro editor.

Oh, my God! They're turkeys!

Interesting timing here...
I've been watching hulu-dot-com episodes in order and "tonight's" was about a busy day in the newsroom. The main story was about a tunnel cave-in where several workers and college students were trapped and rescue efforts continued into the very late evening. A minor story of the day was a young guy scaling a skyscraper from the outside. At one point during the episode Art earmarks that story as having a 1PM deadline. This highlights the time/resource management issues faced by the editors. All your stories can't have the same drop-dead deadline.

It really was a terrific episode for just taking in the process. Importantly, but as I expected, it was characterized as an unusually busy day. Even in Los Angeles (in the late 70's), you won't have major breaking stories most late evenings, thus the ability for Charlie and Lou to head out at normal business hours so often. This episode, however, the familiar gang was still present and accounted for at 9PM. Supporting my suspicion that Trib editors may work in shift, at some point in the episode we get the line, "We kept on most of the day shift."

There was another interesting piece of jargon. I'm not sure what it meant. The phrase had to do with when stories would be ready. Someone figured some story could make "the 2nd home edition." Regarding my earlier post, one hypothesis is that the Trib puts out an early and a late edition. A second hypothesis is that "home edition" may be newspaper talk for what amounts to a 1st draft. Home, in this case, meaning something like "in house." Kind of a mock up to look over before you actually fire up the presses? Anyone know for sure?

After a setback in the rescue at mid-evening, the rescuers reached the survivors (and the dead) at around 11:50 if I remember right. Donovan notes they're really up against it, time-wise, but Lou decides they can get the new material in and gives Rossi 5 minutes to re-write his re-write. It was really a rather amazing thing to watch and contemplate. Lou commands everyone to get their info to Rossi because multiple staffers are gathering info from multiple sources and papers get passed to Rossi from different directions. And I couldn't help but reflect on what happened earlier in the day. Art had planned to send Rossi into the field to cover the story and keep Billie in-house to do the rewrite but Lou switched the assignments. Somewhat near the end of the episode, Rossi compliments Billie on her piece on the distressed families of the victims. The way he put it rankled Billie's feminist feathers, but he was sincere in asserting that Billie did a better job with that assignment than he could have. And then we come to the climax with Rossi getting handed incoming info and typing madly... and although it never gets commented on, I just get this sense that perhaps this was an assignment that Rossi is perhaps better suited for than Billie. And I LOVE the fact that this *didn't* get commented on... that I got to "discover" it on my own. It's nice when a TV show doesn't feel the need to spoon feed you everything.

Art and Lou head home at 2AM. Art asks which one of them gets to sleep in tomorrow. Lou's response is to as which one of them is City Editor. This seems to fit my musing on the chain of command at the Trib and the perks that go along with the responsibilities of being higher up that chain. You trust those under you to handle things during off-hours and to know when something is too big for them to handle themselves. So off-hours you are "on call"... but you do still get off-hours.

First, there's a night shift that works overnight covering breaking news. There was an episode where Lou Grant was temporarily assigned to the night shift.

The reporters that Lou works with are investigative reporters, who cover in-depth stories that take several days to write. They don't write headline news. They do work mostly a 9-5 day, although they cover breaking news when it is big enough that the Trib wants to send a more experienced reporter.

Also, a newspaper is printed in sections, so that the things like human interest stories, engagement announcements, classifieds, and comics, are printed as much as 48 hours in advance of distribution. The sports section can be printed as soon as the workday ends. The last thing to be printed is the front page, and the other breaking news, and that may be printed at 2am for 6am delivery.

The different sections may even be printed in different places, with only the "breaking" section printed in-house, and the rest outsourced to a print shop. Different papers operate differently, though. What's true for one is not necessarily true for another.

Well into the 1980s, The Toronto Star had several editions on weekdays. The "One-Star" edition was the morning paper, available at newsstands. The two- and three-star editions appeared later in the day, and were generally sent to areas outside the city. The four-star edition was delivered to home subscribers in the afternoon; it would often colloquially be called the final edition, or less regularly, the home edition.

It was filmed at the same motion picture studio WKRP in Cincinnati was shot and Gilligans Island.

I have a couple questions for hardcore fans. Why did Billie Newman dislike Joe Rossi so much? Rossi may have lacked some social skills, but wasn't a bad guy.

Why were only two reporters and one photographer regular characters? I guess just because you didn't see more reporters didn't mean they didn't exist. It would have made sense to have a small group of reporters and maybe a photographer or two as recurring characters.