KR looked at consolidated editing hubs

Philadelphia Inquirer Editor David Sullivan in a letter to Jim Romenensko of Poynter Online says he was well aware of Knight Ridder’s plan to consolidate copy editing chores.

Comments from Sullivan followed a statement from former Contra Costa Times editor Chris Lopez who said Knight Ridder looked at creating super regional copy editing centers that would have centralized the copy editing functions of its 32 newspapers. "The proposal had merit and probably would have been implemented had KR survived," he says.

Sullivan and others said that the plan being developed in the mid-2000s would have taken more than five years to implement.

"I have no idea whether the plan was junked before Knight Ridder itself was junked." He adds: "I believe that efforts to move copy desks out of newsrooms is generally a bad thing. ...A distant copy desk serving multiple papers will become a copy desk that cares mainly about its own internal issues and stops having a relationship with the reporters and assigning editors of the newspapers."

“Discussions of the plan concerned locating copy editing "hubs" in three cities. While I have no idea why those were selected, I would have to think it was because 1) the work needed to reach across time zones, and 2) one needed to draw talented people, but the company wanted to avoid the cost-of-living (and thus wage) disparities of places like Miami and San Jose, or the union contracts. But it was not an attempt to shunt all the copy editors up to Aberdeen and pay them $20,000 a year.

“While I'm sure that economy and "efficiency," particularly in KR's later, desperate days, were the buzzwords, part of the genesis was the belief of some leaders of KR's news division that the selection of national and international news in some of their smaller papers could be quixotic, depending upon who was assigned to do wire that night. There had been an earlier project to provide a common nat-forn lead page to all the smaller papers.

“My understanding was that there would be some copy editors kept at the larger papers, at least, who would handle local copy. The major initial thrust had to do with 33 papers, or whatever number KR owned that week, re-editing the same AP story on, oh, fires on Southern California. There was a recognition that asking someone in Fort Worth to know what a "row office" is in Philadelphia was asking too much, at least initially. Of course, the Internet era has led to increased emphasis on local copy, which would have affected the plan.”.

Click on the headline to read Sullivan’s letter.