L.A. Times to have earlier deadlines*

Not only will the Los Angeles Times be thinner and narrower once it closes its Orange County printing plant and moves all operations downtown, but it's newsroom will have to contend with much earlier deadlines.

LA Observed reports that Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein has made a deal to print the Wall Street Journal, which rents the Times' presses for its West Coast edition, later in the day than his own paper. That will push the deadlines for Times reporters several hours forward - possibly as early as 6 p.m. The result will be that some late-breaking news won't appear in the morning edition of the printed edition.

From LAO:

I'm hearing that the Times' off-the-composing-floor deadline of 11 p.m. (with updates until midnight) for the front news section will move earlier by several hours, perhaps to 6 p.m. This would be, I'm pretty sure, the earliest regular deadline in the paper's modern history — at a time when the pressure to be fresher and newsier is greater. It might also mean that the New York Times' deadline for getting breaking news from California onto its front page will be later than the hometown LAT's.

Under the Hartenstein plan, big news that happens late won't be on the front page or even in the A section — which, remember, is now also the LAT's only local news section. Late news will run in a new section-lite being called AA — and branded as LATExtra. For now, at least, Stanton is telling the newsroom that AA will usually run behind the front section, not wrapped around the front page. Stanton's sales pitch today to skeptical editors and reporters was that the trade-off would have been more layoffs.

I've experienced these kinds of early deadlines due to crowded printing schedules and they are demoralizing.

*Update: Editors had to sign nondisclosure agreements, LAO reports.

Consolidation means earlier deadlines in LANG (Updated)

The merger of LANG's Inland Division copy desks is set to take place today and one of the immediate consequences is earlier deadlines for everyone involved. The most severe deadline changes apply to stories set to run inside the A sections - which means everything not scheduled to run on the front page.

A memo from SGVN Managing Editor Steve Hunt provides the details:

Because many of our copy editors and designers will be working 1:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. shifts, we also are going to change the copy deadlines for reporters at all five papers. Beginning Monday, Jan. 19, all inside A section copy for the three SGVN papers will be due at 1:30 p.m. A1 copy for Whittier and Pasadena will be due at 5 p.m., while A1 copy for the Tribune will be due at 5:30 p.m.

The San Bernardino Sun and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin implemented a 3 p.m. deadline* for inside-A material.

The SGVN papers (San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star-News, and Whittier Daily News) had already instituted a 2 p.m. deadline for non-A1 copy, so the change might be less dramatic there. Still, the earlier deadlines will mean less timely news in the printed newspaper and bolster reader reliance on online briefs and updates for the latest news. It will probably also force the sister papers to rely more on each others copy to fill in gaps.

The Inland Division copy-desk merger will also result in earlier "off the floor" deadlines - that's the point at which stories need to have been edited, copy edited and set for print. Once again, the memo:

Beginning Jan. 26, the deadline for the Sun will be 9:30 p.m. and the deadline for Whittier will be 9:45 p.m. The Bulletin deadline will remain 10 p.m. Pasadena's deadline will remain 10:45 p.m., while Tribune's will change to 11:30 p.m.

The Sun's deadline comes before most city council and county board meetings are even at their half-way points, so readers will have to go online to find out what happened the night before.

The gaps left after the Bulletin deadline might be designed to accommodate further copy desk consolidation, with the other members of LANG - Torrance Daily Breeze, Los Angeles Daily News and Long Beach Press-Telegram - possibly joining the uber desk in the next few months.

Read the full memo here.

*The original post listed an incorrect deadline time here. The information is now correct.