The editing department of Hyderabad Hans was pretty weak. No, not in terms work quality, but in terms of numbers. There were just the two of us—Murali and yours truly.
Considering that Murali came to office only at around 6 pm (The duty time ideally starts at 3 pm), we were practically ‘one-and-a-half men’ (I start at 3 pm, and Murali came half way through). Murali stayed back after work is done and did something. I don’t know what. He said that he doesn’t mind staying late, no matter how late, but he cannot come early. What purpose does that serve???!!!
Now, Murali was a wonderful editor. Give him any story and he could change it around. And you get it as close as it can get to being a perfect story. His grammar was immaculate, his words were measured and exact, and his headings were definitely catchy.
Now, for the problems. For one he came late. He rushed into office every day, in a mad hurry…as if that ‘rush’ would make up for the lost three hours. But after that there was absolutely no rush. He ‘sat’ on stories for ages. He went on and on. I am yet to understand why a senior person like Murali didn’t understand the importance of timing.
In a newspaper environment, timing is as important as anything else. If you don’t finish editing on time, the page gets delayed. If the page gets delayed, printing gets delayed. And if printing is delayed, obviously the paper won’t reach the distributor on time. A distributor is not exclusive to a newspaper, he may have several other newspapers to deliver. Why would he delay delivering those to his customers? Why would he wait for our newspaper to reach before starting out? That too, a newly-launched newspaper which didn’t have the numbers of other established ones.
When I joined I was told that timings were sacrosanct, both my Mr Murthy and Mr Nair. I assured them that I’d do all I can to pull back timings. Of course I understood the importance of timing. Ideally, we had to send off the pages to print by 9 pm. Now it was going at around midnight, which is causing a lot of issues.
Well the first thing to do is to set a deadline—for filing stories, editing and pagemaking. If the page has to go at 9 pm, we stop taking stories at 7pm. It would take another two hours to fix all ends and send the page for printing.
So when Murali turned up at 6, a lot of work is done. Then, Murali ‘sat’ on a story. Meanwhile, I was doing everything—editing stories, doing press releases etc. In between, I had to fix headlines on the page, give captions for pictures, look at the layout, pictures etc.
To add to it, Murali used to go through stories I edited. Come on guys, gimme a break… after 18 years, I think I know a little bit of editing, probably I could write a few lines of correct English! I may not be a genius, but I am not a dud!!
I tried telling Murali this. Being a senior person, I put it across very subtly. Once I said: “Murali sir, I have edited it. You don’t have to do it again. In case you are going through it, just look for mistakes I may have made.” No, he had to ‘sit’ on it and change what I wrote.
This was going on, and pages got delayed. I have no issues about anyone changing what I did. But it has to be better (well that’s a relative subject), and timing has to kept.
One day I told Murali that editing is a never-ending process. You can do it till Kingdom come. Give any story to three persons, they can also make changes and edit it again and again. Now when we are hard-pressed for time, the thing to do is to send off the pages as quickly as possible, with the least amount of mistakes. He still didn’t get it. Was that rocket science? Somebody?
Considering that Murali came to office only at around 6 pm (The duty time ideally starts at 3 pm), we were practically ‘one-and-a-half men’ (I start at 3 pm, and Murali came half way through). Murali stayed back after work is done and did something. I don’t know what. He said that he doesn’t mind staying late, no matter how late, but he cannot come early. What purpose does that serve???!!!
Now, Murali was a wonderful editor. Give him any story and he could change it around. And you get it as close as it can get to being a perfect story. His grammar was immaculate, his words were measured and exact, and his headings were definitely catchy.
Now, for the problems. For one he came late. He rushed into office every day, in a mad hurry…as if that ‘rush’ would make up for the lost three hours. But after that there was absolutely no rush. He ‘sat’ on stories for ages. He went on and on. I am yet to understand why a senior person like Murali didn’t understand the importance of timing.
In a newspaper environment, timing is as important as anything else. If you don’t finish editing on time, the page gets delayed. If the page gets delayed, printing gets delayed. And if printing is delayed, obviously the paper won’t reach the distributor on time. A distributor is not exclusive to a newspaper, he may have several other newspapers to deliver. Why would he delay delivering those to his customers? Why would he wait for our newspaper to reach before starting out? That too, a newly-launched newspaper which didn’t have the numbers of other established ones.
When I joined I was told that timings were sacrosanct, both my Mr Murthy and Mr Nair. I assured them that I’d do all I can to pull back timings. Of course I understood the importance of timing. Ideally, we had to send off the pages to print by 9 pm. Now it was going at around midnight, which is causing a lot of issues.
Well the first thing to do is to set a deadline—for filing stories, editing and pagemaking. If the page has to go at 9 pm, we stop taking stories at 7pm. It would take another two hours to fix all ends and send the page for printing.
So when Murali turned up at 6, a lot of work is done. Then, Murali ‘sat’ on a story. Meanwhile, I was doing everything—editing stories, doing press releases etc. In between, I had to fix headlines on the page, give captions for pictures, look at the layout, pictures etc.
To add to it, Murali used to go through stories I edited. Come on guys, gimme a break… after 18 years, I think I know a little bit of editing, probably I could write a few lines of correct English! I may not be a genius, but I am not a dud!!
I tried telling Murali this. Being a senior person, I put it across very subtly. Once I said: “Murali sir, I have edited it. You don’t have to do it again. In case you are going through it, just look for mistakes I may have made.” No, he had to ‘sit’ on it and change what I wrote.
This was going on, and pages got delayed. I have no issues about anyone changing what I did. But it has to be better (well that’s a relative subject), and timing has to kept.
One day I told Murali that editing is a never-ending process. You can do it till Kingdom come. Give any story to three persons, they can also make changes and edit it again and again. Now when we are hard-pressed for time, the thing to do is to send off the pages as quickly as possible, with the least amount of mistakes. He still didn’t get it. Was that rocket science? Somebody?
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