I'm looking for ideas on how to recharge a copy desk that's operating in a bit of a down cycle. Usually the desk runs on all cylinders, taking charge of the work, nailing headlines and hitting their deadlines. Sometimes they're flat -- errors start to creep in; headlines get weak; deadline performance tails off. It's not one thing, one person or one desk. Everyone just seems to be operating in semi-blase mode. Does anyone have any suggestions for a quick, fun and effective way to help jump start this desk?
Tom Clifford, Florida Today

It's not as fast as you'd like but I urge you to send some folks to the ACES conference in Houston in March. Recharging is what we do -- we've always, always had people come back energized and eager to impart that energy and new information to their colleagues.
Check out our site: http://www.copydesk.org and especially comments we've collected about past conferences to address the very concerns you're expressing here: http://www.copydesk.org/conferencequotes.htm
Pam Robinson, American Copy Editors Society

I've lived through many a copy-desk "brown-out" like that. Usually, it's a symptom that they're either burned out or something's wrong. Often the something wrong is a slight that hits large on the desk and seems insignificant to anyone off the desk -- in fact, it's often a slight because the offending action was so far off the radar it didn't register.

I remember whole copy desks going into a slump because newsroomwide meetings were scheduled for mornings -- when copy editors are usually still asleep because of their night schedules. Cafeterias closing at 6 or 7, about an hour or so before copy editors are likely to take a break, can all of a sudden be a sure sign that "management" doesn't care a whit about them. A worsening stream of missed deadlines from reporters or assignment editors can do terrible things to copy desk morale.

What do these things have in common? The copy editor can't do his or her job to the level of quality that he or she wants to meet. Or the copy editors feel -- usually with justification -- that they're ignored or misunderstood. Or that they are capable of doing far better jobs if they just had the backup or resources...

You get the idea. Copy editors are a dear (sometimes) and exasperating (usually) breed. Their job is to be picky with their colleagues' work, and that sets them up for challenges that many other newspeople don't face. An understanding query as to what might help would probably end up being a very practical move.

Please don't think that buying them pizza will help.
Leslie-Jean Thornton, SUNY New Paltz

This may not be precisely the approach you're looking for but ... when our copy desk in the past was hurting a bit -- feeling overworked, short-staffed, underappreciated -- our news editors began trying some non-traditional approaches to raise morale. Over time, the desk has become a tight-knit collegial crew. Morale has risen, errors have dropped and turnover has declined.

Among the special touches:

• Rented a local "art house" theater for a afternoon matinee showing of a movie that hadn't yet made it to Des Moines. The theater owner made the arrangements for the special preview, and the editors could bring a friend or family member. It was quite cheap -- less than $200 for the entire afternoon. Other outings have included go-kart riding.
• On occasion, they've been out for a "pancake breakfast" at an all-night restaurant after edition close. No particular agenda, but it's a chance to blow off steam.
• Produced their own copydesk CD of favorite songs. The news editor did it as a thank-you after the shuttle crash, because she happened to be out of town and knew how hard everyone had worked. Called "Digital Ditties", the CD had one song from every dayside and nightside editor plus a couple favorites of the news editor. Liner notes consisted of why each one had selected their particular song. It was hilarious, revealing, and good listening. On the cover, was a quote from a long-time desk aide, "Terrific! I didn't know we had this much taste."
• The news editor also does occasional little treats: flowers in small vases suddenly appear on everyones' desks in spring. In fall, it was tiny pumpkins. For summer, there were miniature beach balls.

On a more serious note, the desk also has Friday night mini-training sessions. They last just 20-30 minutes, so people can still get a lunch break and put out a newspaper. And the managers excel at finding special projects or assignments to make each editor feel they have a special contribution to make.
Diane Graham, Des Moines Register

I'll be passing Diane's ideas on to our copy desk here, but I want to pass one on from even further back at the Des Moines Register. I was on the copy desk there in the 1970s and we had a four-day week. Everyone on the desk. We worked four 10-hour shifts a week and the desk functioned great and we were all happy campers (well, relatively happy) and had great camaraderie and esprit de corps. I could get six days in a row off without burning any vacation and did on several occasions. And it was perfectly acceptable to play Scrabble (50-point bonus for words on George Carlin's list of the seven dirty words you couldn't say on TV, a list that's somewhat shorter today) or chess late at night when we had all the work done and were just waiting for the city edition to come up.

And one comment on Leslie's comment about buying pizza: Yes, it won't help all by itself. But an occasional pizza, in addition to more substantive efforts, won't hurt.
Steve Buttry, Omaha World-Herald

Copy editors often feel disenfranchised because they come in so late and feel shut out of the decision-making process. They're often left out of the loop - or at least feel that way.

Our News Editor has a quick meeting with the desk every afternoon around 4:15 p.m. to fill them in on the next day's plan -- here's what we're doing and why. She also uses the meeting to talk about the previous day's paper -- here's what we did well, what we could have done better etc. It doesn't have to last long.

I think the additional communication has been a boost for morale. They don't feel as out-of-the-loop. They know what the game plan is and feel more a part of the team.

Re rewards: We also include copy editing and headline in our in-house awards. I know a lot of places do this but if you don't, please consider it. They get a small check, a certificate, and even more important -- when we announce the awards we read their headlines and they get a huge round of applause. We also make sure we talk about the actual editing they do -- not just clever headlines.

Finally, making sure copy editors are included in training programs is essential. We try to make sure we bring in at least one outside speaker each year just for the copy desks in addition to other in-house training programs. We also invite copy editors to many of the same training sessions we have for reporters. Again, the idea is everyone is on the same team, same page.
Sue Burzynski, Detroit News

This used to happen every year at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, not long after the first of the year. We could never figure out whether it was the nearness of spring, or the nearness of Saturn -- and I was working on the desk at the time. It just seemed as if everybody -- or a significant number of bodies -- would lose steam at the same time. We used two different approaches, the whip and the carrot, both of which worked only somewhat, and you could try either or both if you like.

The whip involved making sure everyone was aware of the sudden spate of errors, missed deadlines and missed opportunities. This approach worked best when it was accompanied by the suggestion that the copy editors, all being professionals, could pretty much right themselves and just had to be informed of the problems to take care of them. When it was accompanied by brow-beating or hand-wringing, or when it could be determined that reporters, who had made some of the errors in the first place, weren't receiving the same brow-beating, it had a worsening effect. Inequity is a very big issue on copy desks.

The carrot was a copy desk chief who was willing to do all sorts of silly things to get people's minds off their troubles, or out of their navels, or where ever they were. He came up with several awards, from a plastic carp given for biggest catch of the day to a picture of "Curly" Howard for best headline of the night. And he would occasionally pop up with a toy, like the hamster dressed up as a ninja and singing "Kung Fu Fighting," and reveal it at moments of stress. And this was with a group of editors who for the most part were over 40.

Food was used sparingly, and again had to be presented in a way that did not exacerbate the situation. If you've just battered some people verbally over errors and such, a pizza, or even a cheesecake, isn't going to help. But if your offering is as a sincere reward, then anything from cookies on up is fine. Food also works on a spur-of-the-moment, no-reason basis to help general camraderie.

In-house training efforts, on this desk, generally weren't much of a help. Most of the copy editors felt as if they knew pretty much everything about what they were doing anyway, so they attended sessions grudgingly. It also didn't help when it was clear that about one person a year was brought in to speak to the editors, while 10 or 12 came to talk to reporters. On a younger desk, or a desk with editors of all ages, training sessions probably woul be useful.

One thing that did help -- and hurt -- was giving editors the opportunity to attend the ACES conferences. It helped, because all the editors would get fired up, seeing "management" willing to spring to send copy editors to seminars and such (after all, they said, reporters are jetting off to places all the time). It hurt, however, when it seemed as if one of the first things cut during the recent downturn was reimbursement to copy editors for ACES conferences.
Bill Chronister, St. Petersburg Times

Bill has raised some intriguing issues here. I agree with him that the inequality issue is a major one for copy editors because of what copy editors see:

• Lectures and angry notes directed at copy desks for having failed to close the paper on time, when the cause most often is the late arrival of stories.
  
• Endless tinkering with wording, rewriting, on the part of reporters and their editors, but criticism if copy editors do the same in pursuit of quality layout or editing
  
• Better treatment, simple as that. When we founded ACES, we surveyed copy editors about some of their gripes; a lot had to do with simple respect, having the tools they needed to do their jobs and having their own work and storage space. An amazing number of copy editors have e-mail that works at only one computer but they move from desk to desk throughout the week, little more than a drawer to store their work materials, while watching reporters decorate and litter their areas with plenty of personal items such as pictures, books and more, or don't have dictionaries or other tools unless they buy them out of their own pockets.

Bill's note also raises another question, and I hope some of you will respond: Are the rules for conferences the same for everyone? If you pay hotel and travel costs to send someone to, say, the environmental writers' convention, or an AAJA workshop, do you do the same for copy editors? (And I don't mean recruiters disguised as editors, though they are welcome, too). And do you allow and encourage your copy editors to enter contests, such as the new ACES headline contest, which will award prize money for the first time?(http://www.copydesk.org/contest.htm)

I know of a situation where, for the last three years, someone asks the executive editor to include the ACES contest on the list of acceptable contests, and every year, mysteriously, ACES falls off the list. No one knows why.

And, one more. To go back to the survey mentioned above, we collected some novel ways editors had chosen to reward their staffs, almost all having to do with some sort of prize, often paid for personally by the editor in charge of the desk. One publisher rewarded good work by taking people for rides in his airplane. The person who pointed this out to us also noted that she was terrified of small planes, and thus, unable to collect, and she would have much preferred to be paid as much as reporters.
Pam Robinson