Simply put, it shows that Hartford journalists do not produce six times more than Los Angeles Times journalists.
My posting yesterday showed that Hartford produces, on average, more stories per staffer. But as can be seen above, those stories are generally shorter, about 600 words compared to 860 words.
Overall, however, each LA Times editorial staffer produces MORE copy per year. Each LA Times journalist was responsible for the production of about 38,000 words of dandy, sparkling insight and information last year, compared to about 34,000 equally informative words by a Hartford staffer. (Meaning, by the way, that each editorial staffer produces close to the equivalent of a third of a novel each year.)
Take that, Zidiots.
Here's my methodology. (Randy, pay attention. It's a little thing called transparency. As the editor of a news media organization, you might want to learn how to do this.)
To derive average daily stories, I simply used the total number of stories that ran last year by Los Angeles Times staff writers, both in the Los Angeles Times and in other newspapers, then divided by 365. I did the same for the Hartford Courant.
To derive average daily word count, I really hacked it. Maybe somebody else knows an easier way to do this, but I could find no service which lists each story run by a paper and word count. So I did a sample. I randomly chose 10 dates in 2007 (used a paper bag and slips of paper with numbers, pulled out months and days). I then downloaded all stories run that day, and extracted the date and word count from the citation. For the Times, I got 600 stories. For the Courant, 409. I then did a simple average. I'm not smart enough to know whether this sample is statistically accurate. Are there any poll directors left in Tribune world? Maybe they can weigh in.
Simple math got me to annual word count per staffer. Daily stories times word count for the stories times 365 days in a year divided by estimated number of total editorial staffers.
Caveats. Biggest flaw is still my staff count. I got both from the newspapers. And you know you can never trust the liberal media. So I don't really know if I have apples and apples here.
Second is the arguable choice to compare all LA Times stories run everywhere versus all Hartford stories run everywhere. Obviously, that favors the LA Times since they produce more national copy. But that, my friends, is exactly the point.
If you want to compare what the LA Times does versus the Hartford Courant, you need to include the totality of the business model. The LA Times is (was thanks to Zell) a national paper that produced in-depth news. The reporters write longer stories. They take more time to report. This, more than anything, would explain whatever absurd math Randy Michaels used in his claim that Hartford reporters are six times more productive than LA Times reporter. They simply don't get the business.
The Retch is not a conspiracy guy. But Zell's numbers are demonstrably, clearly, massively wrong. This is not a rounding error. My numbers--transparent and I hope accurate--show that the LA Times staff produces about three stories for every four by the Courant folks. The same calculations show that the average LA Times' story is 40% longer than the average Hartford story.
You can argue about those two data points and what they mean. Are they real measures of quality? Do they say anything significant about journalism? Fine.
My posting yesterday showed that Hartford produces, on average, more stories per staffer. But as can be seen above, those stories are generally shorter, about 600 words compared to 860 words.
Overall, however, each LA Times editorial staffer produces MORE copy per year. Each LA Times journalist was responsible for the production of about 38,000 words of dandy, sparkling insight and information last year, compared to about 34,000 equally informative words by a Hartford staffer. (Meaning, by the way, that each editorial staffer produces close to the equivalent of a third of a novel each year.)
Take that, Zidiots.
Here's my methodology. (Randy, pay attention. It's a little thing called transparency. As the editor of a news media organization, you might want to learn how to do this.)
To derive average daily stories, I simply used the total number of stories that ran last year by Los Angeles Times staff writers, both in the Los Angeles Times and in other newspapers, then divided by 365. I did the same for the Hartford Courant.
To derive average daily word count, I really hacked it. Maybe somebody else knows an easier way to do this, but I could find no service which lists each story run by a paper and word count. So I did a sample. I randomly chose 10 dates in 2007 (used a paper bag and slips of paper with numbers, pulled out months and days). I then downloaded all stories run that day, and extracted the date and word count from the citation. For the Times, I got 600 stories. For the Courant, 409. I then did a simple average. I'm not smart enough to know whether this sample is statistically accurate. Are there any poll directors left in Tribune world? Maybe they can weigh in.
Simple math got me to annual word count per staffer. Daily stories times word count for the stories times 365 days in a year divided by estimated number of total editorial staffers.
Caveats. Biggest flaw is still my staff count. I got both from the newspapers. And you know you can never trust the liberal media. So I don't really know if I have apples and apples here.
Second is the arguable choice to compare all LA Times stories run everywhere versus all Hartford stories run everywhere. Obviously, that favors the LA Times since they produce more national copy. But that, my friends, is exactly the point.
If you want to compare what the LA Times does versus the Hartford Courant, you need to include the totality of the business model. The LA Times is (was thanks to Zell) a national paper that produced in-depth news. The reporters write longer stories. They take more time to report. This, more than anything, would explain whatever absurd math Randy Michaels used in his claim that Hartford reporters are six times more productive than LA Times reporter. They simply don't get the business.
The Retch is not a conspiracy guy. But Zell's numbers are demonstrably, clearly, massively wrong. This is not a rounding error. My numbers--transparent and I hope accurate--show that the LA Times staff produces about three stories for every four by the Courant folks. The same calculations show that the average LA Times' story is 40% longer than the average Hartford story.
You can argue about those two data points and what they mean. Are they real measures of quality? Do they say anything significant about journalism? Fine.
But whatever they mean, they do not indicate a six-times difference in production. There are only two explanations when there is such a huge outlier among similar points of data. Either Zell is stupid and his math is bad. Or he is lying--concealing his methodology, concealing his definitions, concealing his conclusions--for the purpose of further dismantling the LA Times.
Editors: Demand to see the raw data. Do not give up! Fight. Zell is wrong. We are right.
Editors: Demand to see the raw data. Do not give up! Fight. Zell is wrong. We are right.
8 comments:
Interesting.
I was wondering, too, if stories not published in print make it onto the web? Plus, some blogs are being written by staffers. Were those word counts taken into consideration?
I'm glad someone did this, even if the methodology used shortcuts. The factor of 6 seemed way too far off to me.
You just don't see factors this large without some kind of systematic bias (e.g., perhaps the Courant has a very word-heavy section or feature that takes little staff time to put together, which is being counted in the same way as news stories).
preach it, brother.
But look at how many staffers the LAT has--true, there are far fewer once-a-quarter bylines than there used to be, but the LAT still has people punching far below their weight.
when you count stories that appear "anywhere" -- that is, in publications outside the Times as well as in the Times -- are you counting some stories several times? would it be more accurate only to count each story when it appears in the writer's home paper?
In response to the two Anonymous folks above.
"Do LA Times staffers punch below their weight?"
And "Would it be more accurate only to count each story when it appears in the writer's home paper?"
Both questions are, essentially, about the effectiveness and efficiency of an LA Times reporter.
LA Times reporters obviously write fewer stories; They also take longer to write them.
However, those stories are then picked up by other newspapers to run for more readers.
This, I think, is a measure of value, a measure of productivity. They do less physical work than the Hartford Courant employee. But the LA Times story must have some additional value because other newspapers purchase the work.
I don't have the actual numbers, but I'd like to see someone factor in the average pay between the LAT and HC staffers. Something tells me that Zell can squeeze more blood out of his west coast turnips.
Personally, I don't think anyone (including Zell) actually cares about the productivity. He just wants to cut costs, and any sort of mathematical hocus pocus that justifies efforts toward that are always going to be taken as gospel.
If you believe he's just misguided, then it should be possible to prevent this asinine plan by simply using the math to show the holes in their logic, and thereby save the day.
But you can't. Zell needs to climb out of the hole he dug for himself when he took on all that debt, and he's going to do it by climbing over your backs.
-w3
I think the total newshole for the papers includes all the zoned editions. I believe Hartford has several zoned edotions, more so than Los Angeles.
So, Hartford staffers are getting several times credit for the same material. For example, a page may run several different ways with stories just moved around the paper.
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