Category Archives: Foundational documents

The York Daily Record story, as told to a good friend

NOTE: Tonight, I am giving a virtual tour of our newsroom to the Cub Scout pack that my friend’s son is in. We are doing this via Skype on iPad because the boys live in the Philadelphia area. The following … Continue reading

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Newsroom culture of excellence, foundational document No. 10: Understanding digits in the digital world

This graphs shows growth of our Facebook audience from four counties – York, Adams, Franklin and Lebanon – and beyond. Many journalists will tell you that math wasn’t their best subject. In fact, some will say they got into journalism … Continue reading

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Year-end stats show York Daily Record is getting it right more often

In an earlier blog post about the foundational values of the York Daily Record/Sunday News, Editor Jim McClure showed that accuracy is a prime target for us. Among our 14 Core Operating Competencies, accuracy stands clear and tall. Here’s how … Continue reading

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Newsroom culture of excellence, foundational document No. 9: Resetting job descriptions to digital

This is a generic job description for journalists at the York Daily Record/Sunday News. These descriptions have been retooled from a print-centric emphasis to digitally oriented functions. A problem with this: As soon as they’re issued, they become dated with … Continue reading

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Newsroom culture of excellence, foundational document No. 8: Changing the course of the copy desk

Click to see full graphic.   It’s time to change and expand the roles of one of the most traditional areas of the newsroom — the copy desk. These are the folks who, traditionally, put the finishing touches on the … Continue reading

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Newsroom culture of excellence, foundational document No. 7: An editing plan for breaking news

This is the York Daily Record/Sunday News’ phased plan to deploy editors and other journalists to push out breaking news content – and to interact with readers. (Click on image to see complete plan.) The plan assigns duties for editors … Continue reading

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Newsroom culture of excellence, foundational document No. 6: How we grow our audience at the YDR

Traditionally, newspapers measured their success in circulation – the number of papers sold each day. That’s how most of us referred to newspapers around the country. “Hey, I heard Bob got a job at the Baltimore Sun. They’re over 200,000, … Continue reading

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Newsroom culture of excellence, foundational document No. 5: Breaking news in a multiplatform environment

When deadline is ever-present and technology advances at a lightning pace and the needs of your audience shift from story to story and day to day, it is hard to establish a pattern of what you expect from yourself and … Continue reading

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Newsroom culture of excellence, foundational document No. 4: Story budget aims toward digital

This is part of the York, Pa., Daily Record/Sunday News daily news budget, an oft-referenced tool in our newsroom. Several years ago, we reshaped the budget to reflect our growing push to put our stories and photos on a multitude … Continue reading

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Newsroom culture of excellence, foundational document No. 3: What do you expect?

The York Daily Record/Sunday News’ Core Operating Competencies are designed to help new journalists in our newsroom understand our culture. They also serve as a brush up for veteran journalists. See three other panels that make up these competencies below. … Continue reading

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