Rearranging the newsroom with a coach in the middle helped a South African newspaper's sales soar, improved morale and made the stories better

Almost two years ago, the paper plummeted in circulation, mostly because readers could not understand the stories. Reporters could not understand their own stories as printed. Because of antiquated habits, the staff pumped 100 stories nightly into space for 30-40, and the copy desk shredded them, trying to make everything fit.

The new editor, Moegsin Williams, revamped the entire operation, cutting down the number of stories, shifting to explanatory journalism, and inventing the "Operations Center," a room dominated by a coaching editor. One year later, the circulation has soared because the paper now makes sense.

The operations center, about 15 by 20 feet, contains a table and chairs, a telephone, seven whiteboards, and one local-news editor. Notice that the room does not contain a terminal.

The day begins with the news editor, his deputy, and the photo chief brainstorming with all the local reporters as a group about that day's news agenda. Everybody talks, suggesting angles and sources and visual possibilities. Nobody gives orders.

For the rest of the day, the news editor and his deputy take turns staffing the room. Reporters call in when they need help or want to adjust their story assignments. Every writer checks in to the Ops Center between the end of reporting and the beginning of typing, and debriefs with the sitting editor on the structure, content, length, and angle of the story. The editor/coach mostly listens and asks helpful questions. Every reporter leaves the room knowing what he or she wants to say.

The walls contain seven whiteboards, two for scribbling and layout dummies, and one for each of the upcoming five days of the week. These daily boards contain lists of story ideas, arranged in categories by subject and treatment, with some indications of wire stories and columns expected.

As each reporter talks with the news editor, he listens for story ideas and writes them up onto the daily boards. So every story spins forward, and fits into long-term coverage. The editor can also split that day's story, saving part of it for later treatment. At any given time, a visitor can see about half of the upcoming stories somewhere on those boards.

The sitting news editor does not edit stories at all, indeed cannot edit them, because the room has no terminal. The editor outside the room can edit, but tends to do so only on front-page pieces. The coordination of stories with visuals begins early and continues throughout the cycle. The staff holds two daily news meetings in the room. The day ends with a front-page meeting in which the senior editors write headlines for the major stories.

What's the result? Stories come in earlier, the right length, and cleaner, requiring very little editing, often none at all. Senior editors and department heads can get a sense of what's happening by dropping in. The stories now all make sense, and copy flow has speeded up markedly. Morale, especially on the copy desk, has risen sharply.

I sat through a whole cycle in the ops center, and I can tell you why their system works. As in all coaching schemes, the editors moved their efforts from tedious fixing to interesting front-end work. The reporters get all the help they want and need, so they get the stories right the first time. The copy desk receives stories ready to flow into the layout. The news editor told me he actually looks forward to coming in to work.

Fry, an affiliate of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, is an independent writing coach in St. Petersburg, Fla. Call him at 813/866-3460.