Mailbag — The 40-Hour Work Week

Thoughts on this?

Ben,
This may be more of a question for someone at Poynter or, say, a Gangrey discussion if worthy, but I'm curious about the extra time – unpaid in many respects – that goes into running down the great stories.
The hours-required-to-"go-deep" issue, gets a lot of attention at writer's conferences. What isn't so often said, though, is the answer a lot of reporters really don't want to hear: "Just f—— make time!"
I guess my question is also about craft. Is it not impossible to deliver a fine-tuned piece like your jewel on the Tennessee escape artist and his hubcap-boiled-chicken-eating kin, if all you are willing to work are 40 hours a week?
I know that on the stuff I really care about – which is most everything – I'll write and edit and rewrite into the night and beyond after going home. For the killer stuff anyway. While it'd be great to be compensated for all the hard work, I am personally worried less about that than I am not giving stories all I've got.
Doesn't putting the spit-shine on great work like what you and a number of your colleagues do take the extra effort, "the time in the gym" as the athletes say?
Can you write and report the way you and the other pros do in a 40-hour week?
I'm guessing hell no. And if I'm right, how might I encourage some of the other staffers at my paper to see the light to, well, "bring it" — compensation be danged? Because a lot of the "stories" in our paper could use a lot more work.

This may be more of a question for someone at Poynter or, say, a Gangrey discussion if worthy, but I'm curious about the extra time – unpaid in many respects – that goes into running down the great stories.

The hours-required-to-"go-deep" issue, gets a lot of attention at writer's conferences. What isn't so often said, though, is the answer a lot of reporters really don't want to hear: "Just f—— make time!"

I guess my question is also about craft. Is it not impossible to deliver a fine-tuned piece like your jewel on the Tennessee escape artist and his hubcap-boiled-chicken-eating kin, if all you are willing to work are 40 hours a week?

I know that on the stuff I really care about – which is most everything – I'll write and edit and rewrite into the night and beyond after going home. For the killer stuff anyway. While it'd be great to be compensated for all the hard work, I am personally worried less about that than I am not giving stories all I've got.

Doesn't putting the spit-shine on great work like what you and a number of your colleagues do take the extra effort, "the time in the gym" as the athletes say?

Can you write and report the way you and the other pros do in a 40-hour week?

I'm guessing hell no. And if I'm right, how might I encourage some of the other staffers at my paper to see the light to, well, "bring it" — compensation be danged? Because a lot of the "stories" in our paper could use a lot more work