Best use of resources
We've gotten a couple of unrelated complaints in the past few days about our promptness, or lack thereof, in pursuing a story idea or tip. Since I'm not currently involved in the day-to-day or even week-to-week flow of reporting for the time being, I could've let 'em slide.
But in the interests of greater transparency, I'm not gonna do that.
Here's the thing: Readers with a story idea or tip sometimes act as if the reporter who would be responsible for pursuing it was just sitting around, drinking coffee and waiting for something to happen, when the tip came in. Maybe there's a newsroom that works like that, but I've never worked in one.
At the N&R, reporters tend to have ideas and stories-in-progress stacked up like airplanes trying to land at LAX at 5 p.m. Anyone who spends much time sitting around drinking coffee and waiting for something to happen tends to have a short and unhappy career with us. Our folks *have* to be productive, particularly with regard to centerpieces, the big stories with lots of photos or other art that anchor each section front every day. And they are. And yet, rare is the Monday on which one city editor or another doesn't have to send out a message to reporters, begging them to list coming stories on the budgets (story lists) for the coming week and weekend.
Working in opposition to this tendency is the fact that a lot of the tips we get are the kinds of stories that, although undeniably important, require more investment of time and energy than the average story. Ideally, reporters would always be working on their best stories. In the real world, editors often -- too often -- have to insist instead that they work on the stories they can finish quickly. (I include myself in that criticism; I've experienced it from both the reporting and writing ends.) And the N&R is far better than most papers its size at getting high-impact stories into the paper fairly quickly. (Former editor Tim Porter has some related thoughts here and here on this subject.
So what's my point? I have a few, actually.
Fortunately, we have someone here who, historically, has been pretty good about doing just that.