Controversial: Watch Those Deadlines

As you may recall, this homework assignment was due at 9 a.m. Friday, meaning my email account had to have received your story before the clock struck 9.

And the last story was received at 9 a.m. and 15 seconds.

That's 15 seconds past deadline.

And I'm sorry to say, that's a time fatal that scores an automatic 0.0.


As I've said earlier, any assignment turned in after a deadline passes -- even if it's just a few seconds late -- automatically gets a zero.

I'm not enforcing deadlines to be a Nazi. Rather, it's to reinforce the habit of never missing a deadline, and always making sure you're giving yourself enough wiggle room to make deadlines each and every time. Because journalism is a deadline business, we can never miss a deadline.

For example, if you're writing scripts for the 11 o'clock news, your scripts have to be in front of your anchors by 11 p.m., and not a minute later or even a few seconds later. The show starts at 11 o'clock, on the dot, no matter what. The anchor doesn't have the option of telling the audience, "Hey, just hold on a minute; we're still working on our scripts."

But the news director does have the option of firing you.

That's why we're trying to work on your deadline habit now; so you avoid a bigger and costlier missed deadline later.

You could always do extra credit here to make up for a time fatal. Getting a new job after you get fired with cause from your old one is a bit harder to do. 

Let's learn the lesson, and own deadlines from here on out.