Missing: Watch Those Deadlines

As you may recall, this homework assignment was due at 9 a.m., 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 10 seconds.

That's 10 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.

More Ledes: Meeting Deadlines

One of us did a really solid job on this assignment. Crisp ledes, filled with the most important details, presented in a way to emphasize meaning and context.

Problem was, the time stamp on the email said it was received at 9:10 a.m. The deadline was 9 a.m. It was 10 minutes late. Just 10 minutes, right?

Wrong. When it comes to deadlines, there's no such thing as, just anything. That's an automatic 0.0.

Is there a journalistic value reason for that? You bet. An editor can work with a piece o' crap story, no matter how bad it is. They can fix it and clean it up sufficiently as long as they have it. But they can't work with nothing. Nor can you fill up a newspaper page or a TV script with nothing.

Think about it: have you ever watched the 11 o'clock news, when they've started the show by saying, "Our scripts aren't ready yet; come back in 10 minutes"? Me neither. That's because it simply isn't allowed to happen. And those who may be tardy with the occasional deadline are soon asked to find something else to do for a living.

It's a lesson I'd rather have you appreciate the severity of in this class, than on your first internship or job. Here, it's a shitty grade on one assignment. Out there, it's a derailment of your professional career. 

It's your responsibility to make sure you don't forget an assignment, as it is in the real world. It's your responsibility that you're not even one second late on your deadline, as it is in the real world. And as in the real world, it's your responsibility to make sure your assignment is routed to the right place, which in this case is omars@msu.edu.

Them's the breaks, folks. It sucks, but let's at least learn from these errors so we don't repeat 'em.

Missing: Watch Those Deadlines

As you may recall, this homework assignment was due at 9 a.m., 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 10 seconds.

That's 10 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.

More Ledes: Meeting Deadlines

One of us did a really solid job on this assignment. Crisp ledes, filled with the most important details, presented in a way to emphasize meaning and context.

Problem was, the time stamp on the email said it was received at 9:10 a.m. The deadline was 9 a.m. It was 10 minutes late. Just 10 minutes, right?

Wrong. When it comes to deadlines, there's no such thing as, just anything. That's an automatic 0.0.

Is there a journalistic value reason for that? You bet. An editor can work with a piece o' crap story, no matter how bad it is. They can fix it and clean it up sufficiently as long as they have it. But they can't work with nothing. Nor can you fill up a newspaper page or a TV script with nothing.

Think about it: have you ever watched the 11 o'clock news, when they've started the show by saying, "Our scripts aren't ready yet; come back in 10 minutes"? Me neither. That's because it simply isn't allowed to happen. And those who may be tardy with the occasional deadline are soon asked to find something else to do for a living.

It's a lesson I'd rather have you appreciate the severity of in this class, than on your first internship or job. Here, it's a shitty grade on one assignment. Out there, it's a derailment of your professional career. 

It's your responsibility to make sure you don't forget an assignment, as it is in the real world. It's your responsibility that you're not even one second late on your deadline, as it is in the real world. And as in the real world, it's your responsibility to make sure your assignment is routed to the right place, which in this case is omars@msu.edu.

Them's the breaks, folks. It sucks, but let's at least learn from these errors so we don't repeat 'em.

Missing: Watch Those Deadlines

As you may recall, this homework assignment was due at 9 a.m. Monday morning, 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 10 seconds.

That's 10 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.

More Ledes: Meeting Deadlines

One of us did a really solid job on this assignment. Crisp ledes, filled with the most important details, presented in a way to emphasize meaning and context.

Problem was, the time stamp on the email said it was received at 9:10 a.m. The deadline was 9 a.m. It was 10 minutes late. Just 10 minutes, right?

Wrong. When it comes to deadlines, there's no such thing as, just anything. That's an automatic 0.0.

Is there a journalistic value reason for that? You bet. An editor can work with a piece o' crap story, no matter how bad it is. They can fix it and clean it up sufficiently as long as they have it. But they can't work with nothing. Nor can you fill up a newspaper page or a TV script with nothing.

Think about it: have you ever watched the 11 o'clock news, when they've started the show by saying, "Our scripts aren't ready yet; come back in 10 minutes"? Me neither. That's because it simply isn't allowed to happen. And those who may be tardy with the occasional deadline are soon asked to find something else to do for a living.

It's a lesson I'd rather have you appreciate the severity of in this class, than on your first internship or job. Here, it's a shitty grade on one assignment. Out there, it's a derailment of your professional career. 

It's your responsibility to make sure you don't forget an assignment, as it is in the real world. It's your responsibility that you're not even one second late on your deadline, as it is in the real world. And as in the real world, it's your responsibility to make sure your assignment is routed to the right place, which in this case is omars@msu.edu.

Them's the breaks, folks. It sucks, but let's at least learn from these errors so we don't repeat 'em.

Missing: Watch Those Deadlines

As you may recall, this homework assignment was due at 9 a.m. Monday morning, 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 10 seconds.

That's 10 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.

More Ledes: Meeting Deadlines

One of us did a really solid job on this assignment. Crisp ledes, filled with the most important details, presented in a way to emphasize meaning and context.

Problem was, the time stamp on the email said it was received at 9:10 a.m. The deadline was 9 a.m. It was 10 minutes late. Just 10 minutes, right?

Wrong. When it comes to deadlines, there's no such thing as, just anything. That's an automatic 0.0.

Is there a journalistic value reason for that? You bet. An editor can work with a piece o' crap story, no matter how bad it is. They can fix it and clean it up sufficiently as long as they have it. But they can't work with nothing. Nor can you fill up a newspaper page or a TV script with nothing.

Think about it: have you ever watched the 11 o'clock news, when they've started the show by saying, "Our scripts aren't ready yet; come back in 10 minutes"? Me neither. That's because it simply isn't allowed to happen. And those who may be tardy with the occasional deadline are soon asked to find something else to do for a living.

It's a lesson I'd rather have you appreciate the severity of in this class, than on your first internship or job. Here, it's a shitty grade on one assignment. Out there, it's a derailment of your professional career. 

It's your responsibility to make sure you don't forget an assignment, as it is in the real world. It's your responsibility that you're not even one second late on your deadline, as it is in the real world. And as in the real world, it's your responsibility to make sure your assignment is routed to the right place, which in this case is omars@msu.edu.

Them's the breaks, folks. It sucks, but let's at least learn from these errors so we don't repeat 'em.

Missing: Watch Those Deadlines

As you may recall, this homework assignment was due at 9 a.m. Monday morning, 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 10 seconds.

That's 10 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.

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.

More Ledes: Meeting Deadlines

One of us did a really solid job on this assignment. Crisp ledes, filled with the most important details, presented in a way to emphasize meaning and context.

Problem was, the time stamp on the email said it was received at 9:10 a.m. The deadline was 9 a.m. It was 10 minutes late. Just 10 minutes, right?

Wrong. When it comes to deadlines, there's no such thing as, just anything. That's an automatic 0.0.

Is there a journalistic value reason for that? You bet. An editor can work with a piece o' crap story, no matter how bad it is. They can fix it and clean it up sufficiently as long as they have it. But they can't work with nothing. Nor can you fill up a newspaper page or a TV script with nothing.

Think about it: have you ever watched the 11 o'clock news, when they've started the show by saying, "Our scripts aren't ready yet; come back in 10 minutes"? Me neither. That's because it simply isn't allowed to happen. And those who may be tardy with the occasional deadline are soon asked to find something else to do for a living.

It's a lesson I'd rather have you appreciate the severity of in this class, than on your first internship or job. Here, it's a shitty grade on one assignment. Out there, it's a derailment of your professional career.

It's your responsibility to make sure you don't forget an assignment, as it is in the real world. It's your responsibility that you're not even one second late on your deadline, as it is in the real world. And as in the real world, it's your responsibility to make sure your assignment is routed to the right place, which in this case is omars@msu.edu.

Them's the breaks, folks. It sucks, but let's at least learn from these errors so we don't repeat 'em.

First Ledes: Deadlines Can Be Deadly

On the homework portion of this exercise, one person missed their deadline by 38 minutes. And that's a zero-point grade -- yes, an even-worse grade than a simple fact error.

That's because the worst thing we can do in journalism -- even worse than getting a fatal -- is to miss a deadline.

A newspaper can't go to print with blank spots in the pages, and a 30-minute newscast can't to to air without content that fills up all 30 minutes. 

(And if you're working for the 11 o'clock news, a script isn't of much help after midnight -- or even at a few minutes after 11.)

That means in the media business, you can never miss a deadline.

In journalism, turning in something, anything that meets the minimum standard is critical. You can produce an absolute piece of crap and as long as it's turned in, an editor can still work with it and make it acceptable to use on air or online or in print by his or her deadline. 

An editor can't work with nothing. And someone who turns in nothing won't have a job for very long. Trust me, once I saw someone totally brain-freeze and fail to file anything on deadline on a college basketball game once. And it did happen just once, because the boss told her not to bother coming back to the newsroom; she'd have her final paycheck mailed to her, and she should just have her laptop shipped to work in the same way.

It's that serious. We have to start building good habits now. The penalty for you is a shitty grade, which stings. But I'd rather have you learn a painful lesson now, when the consequence is just a bruised ego. Not an ended career.

OOC #3: We Have Problems

So, Thursday was the deadline for the third out-of-class story, and barely half the class submitted the story. 

That's a huge problem. Every out-of-class assignment is worth about 13 percent of your final grade, meaning that if you do only two out of three (or four, if you also skip the optional fourth one) but get 4.0s on every other assignment, your final grade for the semester can be no better than a 3.0.

Since the start of class, I've tried to emphasize the importance of turning in all your assignments, and not missing any. This is from a June 30 blog post:

*****

The worst thing we can do in journalism -- even worse than getting a fatal -- is to blow off an assignment. A newspaper can't go to print with blank spots in the pages, and a 30-minute newscast can't to to air without content that fills up all 30 minutes. That means in the media business, you can never miss a deadline.
And yes, to reinforce good habits and deter bad ones, assignments that are not done will have a much more severe impact on your final grade than fatals will, and if I have to use a tie-breaker in determining your final grade, the first categories I will use will be whether you blew off any assignments, since that tells me how seriously you are taking this class.
I express that value in the grading scale. Everything we do in here translates to a 1,000-point scale to which your grade is converted to a smaller subset of points that add up toward that. So when we get a 4.0 you get 100 percent of points, a 3.9 gets us 99 points, a 3.8 gets 98, and so forth.
 
And under that scale, a fact fatal that gets us a 1.0 still gets us 70 points. If we screw up an assignment so bad that we get a 0.1, that's still 61 points.
 
But a 0.0 is zero points. At a 0.1, we're closer to a 4.0 than a 0.0.
 
Again, that's to emphasize that missing your deadline is simply not an option in the media biz. We always need to hit our deadlines. Every single time.
 
Beyond that, none of us can afford to miss a single assignment because we need the practice! You'll soon be working on out-of-class stories (which are our biggest projects that most impact your final grade), and the best way to make sure you're writing it in a proper journalistic manner is to have opportunities with these practice stories to try our best, review our work, keep applying good habits and learn how to fix our bad ones.
 
We can't do that if we don't do that.

 Again, the more you tell me you are unreliable as a journalist by skipping assignments and not showing up without a valid excuse, the more I will recognize that in your final grade. I can work with you if you give me an assignment that's not up to snuff -- and so can an editor in a real-world setting -- but I can't work with nothing, and I can't work with you if you're not here. Neither can your future bosses.

*****

At this point, for some of you we've missed so much work that I fear we're past the point of no return. If you've missed a bunch of work this summer, don't be surprised by the grade you'll get. I'm afraid we have people trending toward flunking this class: a very rare thing in my six years of teaching JRN 200.

But I can't grade what you never turn in.

If you want to talk about where you're at and what (little) we can do with the (little) time that's left, then let's talk. I'm out of the office Friday but I'll be in all of next week. Email is omars@msu.edu, phone is 517-432-3009, office is 435 E. Grand River Ave..

Missing: Watch Those Deadlines

As you may recall, this homework assignment was due at 9 a.m. this morning, 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 10 seconds.

That's 10 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.

Controversial: Watch Those Deadlines

As you may recall, this homework assignment was due at 9 a.m. this morning, 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.

More Ledes: Meeting Deadlines

One of us did a really solid job on this assignment. Crisp ledes, filled with the most important details, presented in a way to emphasize meaning and context.

Problem was, the time stamp on the email said it was received at 9:10 a.m. The deadline was 9 a.m. It was 10 minutes late. Just 10 minutes, right?

Wrong. When it comes to deadlines, there's no such thing as, just anything. That's an automatic 0.0.

Is there a journalistic value reason for that? You bet. An editor can work with a piece o' crap story, no matter how bad it is. They can fix it and clean it up sufficiently as long as they have it. But they can't work with nothing. Nor can you fill up a newspaper page or a TV script with nothing.

Think about it: have you ever watched the 11 o'clock news, when they've started the show by saying, "Our scripts aren't ready yet; come back in 10 minutes"? Me neither. That's because it simply isn't allowed to happen. And those who may be tardy with the occasional deadline are soon asked to find something else to do for a living.

It's a lesson I'd rather have you appreciate the severity of in this class, than on your first internship or job. Here, it's a shitty grade on one assignment. Out there, it's a derailment of your professional career.

It's your responsibility to make sure you don't forget an assignment, as it is in the real world. It's your responsibility that you're not even one second late on your deadline, as it is in the real world. And as in the real world, it's your responsibility to make sure your assignment is routed to the right place, which in this case is omars@msu.edu.

Them's the breaks, folks. It sucks, but let's at least learn from these errors so we don't repeat 'em.

More Ledes: Deadlines Can Be Deadly

On the homework portion of this exercise, one person missed their deadline by more than an hour. Even worse, a few people didn't turn anything in at all.

And that gets those folks a zero -- yes, an even-0worse grade than a simple fact error.

That's because the worst thing we can do in journalism -- even worse than getting a fatal -- is to miss a deadline.

A newspaper can't go to print with blank spots in the pages, and a 30-minute newscast can't to to air without content that fills up all 30 minutes. 

(And if you're working for the 11 o'clock news, a script isn't of much help after midnight -- or even at a few minutes after 11.)

That means in the media business, you can never miss a deadline.

In journalism, turning in something, anything that meets the minimum standard is critical. You can produce an absolute piece of crap and as long as it's turned in, an editor can still work with it and make it acceptable to use on air or online or in print by his or her deadline. 

An editor can't work with nothing. And someone who turns in nothing won't have a job for very long. Trust me, once I saw someone totally brain-freeze and fail to file anything on deadline on a college basketball game once. And it did happen just once, because the boss told her not to bother coming back to the newsroom; she'd have her final paycheck mailed to her, and she should just have her laptop shipped to work in the same way.

It's that serious. We have to start building good habits now. The penalty for you is a shitty grade, which stings. But I'd rather have you learn a painful lesson now, when the consequence is just a bruised ego. Not an ended career.