I thought I’d give a little insight into our daily news decision-making process.

Most decisions about what goes into the next day’s paper are made during two meetings, one at 10 a.m. and one at 3 p.m., in our 2nd floor conference room.

The 10 a.m. meeting involves myself, the managing editor, Bob Crider, and other editors representing all the major news sections of the newspaper - features, sports, business, regional, metro - as well as pressherald.com, photo and graphics. This meeting centers around what stories we’re working on for the following day’s paper. Each editor talks about what their staff is doing and what stories are expected. The photo editor talks about what pictures they’re planning to make that day. The graphics editor talks about the story elements - maps, charts, etc. - that they're working on.

In some cases, we’ll see something that isn't being covered and assign a story from that meeting. The editors then go back to their respective staffs and work to develop the stories, photos and graphics.

The 3 p.m. meeting is called the “Page 1 meeting.” Usually our executive editor, Jeannine Guttman, attends. This meeting also features page designers and the head of the night copy desk, who oversees all the copy editors who will be reading and laying out the next day’s paper. At this meeting, the wire editor talks about the major stories that are moving on the national and international news wires. Then the various assignment editors - myself, Dieter Bradbury, Eric Blom, Grace Murphy, Matt Wickenheiser - “pitch” the local stories we think belong on Page A1.

Jeannine (or, if she’s not there, our managing editor Bob Crider) picks from among that list the stories that will make up the next day’s Page A1. Usually four or five stories make the cut.

After that we have what is known as the "spin" portion of the meeting, when we talk about the following day's paper.

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