AFTER DEADLINE
How we bring the world to you
By Chris Neil
Advertiser Wire Editor
I'm The Advertiser's wire editor, which means I select and edit national and international news stories used in the paper.
I used to be a reporter. I still miss meeting new people and writing, but this job covers a lot more ground. As a reporter, I used to boast of the day I had seven bylined stories. Now, I'm responsible for everything from the daily People column to the Nation/World page in weekday editions.
I decided to give the wire job a try, in part, because I'm interested in politics and policy issues. Also, I wanted to see if I could do a better job making connections between wire stories and local issues.
When I find a wire story that may have a local angle and the city desk assigns a reporter to "localize" it — to supplement the wire report with information on what it means to Hawai'i — and the story runs on the front page, that's what I call a good day.
My day starts with what we call budgets, lists of the main stories our wire services will file that day. The Advertiser subscribes to six services: the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, Knight Ridder News Service (this includes reports from the Miami Herald, the Chicago Tribune and the Philadelphia Inquirer, to name three of the best), the Wall Street Journal, Gannett News Service (including USA Today) and the Washington Post-Los Angeles Times News Service.
Each wire service's daily budget generally lists 25 to 30 stories. In addition, wire services file dozens of stories that are not listed on the budgets. Editors in the sports, business and Island Life sections also review the wires for specialized stories on everything from baseball box scores to features on fashion.
A wire budget is a useful tool but isn't a substitute for scanning the stories themselves. I scan from 500 to 800 stories a day. If we printed them all, The Advertiser would be as thick as a telephone directory, so a large part of my job is deciding what won't be printed.
Of course, many of the stories are updates of previous versions. And many are of no consequence to Hawai'i. Also, I give some regions and issues better coverage than others. For example, a significant amount of our international news coverage, for obvious reasons, is devoted to the Asia Pacific region. That doesn't mean a big news event in, say, Cuba won't be covered.
On a day when space in the paper is tight, I give preference to breaking news stories. Features and analyses are important and necessary aspects of any wire report, but on days with limited space, I save them for the larger Sunday paper. That's when I try to run at least one story that puts some of the previous week's events into perspective.
After weeding out the stories that won't make the daily cut, I'm usually left with about 12 to 15 must-run stories. Some are obvious — the president gives a major policy speech, Congress passes landmark legislation, a news development directly affects Hawai'i.
Others are incremental developments in stories that we've already run. One of the most important things I do is ensure that stories are followed to their conclusion. For instance, if I run a story on the beginning of a trial, I guarantee I will also run a story on the jury's verdict. Of course, that doesn't mean I'll run a story every day, but I will cover significant developments.
It can be difficult to gauge when a development is significant. Is that latest suicide bombing in the Mideast going to prompt a massive Israeli counterstrike? Is that latest medical study a breakthrough or hype? The best way to be sure is to read all the stories on important issues every day. After a while, you get a feel for the rhythm of events.
If there is a downside to my job, it is that so many people seem uninterested in important events, especially if they involve other countries. I don't understand how that can be, especially after Sept. 11.
I think of The Advertiser's daily wire report as an installment in an ongoing conversation with you, the reader. Like a good conversation, it should be informative, interesting and entertaining. It shouldn't be a monologue.
Chris Neil has been The Advertiser's wire editor since 1997.
