Weekly Story #1: A Very Serious Problem

We are having a serious issue with some people not meeting pitch deadlines. Worse, we have some people missing weekly stories.

These are huge problems, people.

First, keep in mind there aren't many assignments this semester, so each weekly story (and your final project) are huge when it comes to your final grade. Half of your final grade will be based on weekly stories, with each weekly story making up 7 percent of your final grade.

That means if you miss one weekly story, you can get no more than 93 percent of possible points (which equals a 3.5) for this class, even if you 4.0 everything else. If you miss two, that caps your highest possible grade at a 3.0 (or 87 percent of possible points) even if you 4.0 everything else.

And odds are you won't 4.0 everything else, so you can drop those grades by at least 0.5.

The final project is 25 percent of your final grade, so missing the pitch deadline and/or the final project deadline will mean you at best can only get a 1.5 for the semester.

Story pitch deadlines will affect those grades as well. First, I will dock you for missing a deadline. second, you by missing your original deadline will give yourself less time to work on a story, and the thing we most need to do well in this class is as much time as possible to work on our stories and contact a broad range of sources.

The reason we so strictly enforce deadlines is because missing even one deadline is unacceptable in the real world. Ever flip on the 11 o'clock news and have the anchor say, welcome to the news! Hold on a minute; we're still finishing up some stuff? 

Of course not. That's because anyone with even a whiff of missing a deadline is either fired right away or never hired in the first place.

Case in point: early in my career a sportswriter at the first real newspaper I worked at missed her deadline. She just froze up. I still remember the editor on the phone with her, calmly telling her that's okay; he would mail her final paycheck to her and she could just mail back her laptop; no need for her to come back in ever again.

Seriously.

You see, as long as you turn in something an editor can work with that. Massage it, breathe life into it. They may be angry at you for it being a piece of junk, but a piece of junk can be salvaged.

But an editor can't work with nothing. And in the real world, that TV news producer is counting on you to turn in something approximating your assignment so he or she can fill the 50 seconds of the newscast for which they are counting on your story. Or a newspaper editor is counting on you to fill those 15 column inches on deadline. There is no backup; they need your story.

That's the habit we need to get down pat. That's the standard we are going to enforce here. Please, no more missed deadlines. Or expect the worse come final grades.