Create, Publish, Consume
MediaSpan's Monthly Report

The Growing Value of Planning Tools in Today’s Budget-Driven Pagination Environment

1/13/2012 by Chuck Johnson
In newspaper parlance, a "budget" is the amount of space available on a sheet of newsprint and how that space is broken up into stories, graphics, and ads. Even before a single page has been paginated, it is possible to identify and plan what items should go on each page. This is called "budgeting."

A planning tool, also called a budget tool, is used by editors to pick which stories they want to print and then decide on the publication, date, and page that story will be printed. More often in today's world, the main stories that will appear in the paper are being "planned" ahead of time, rather than letting the paginators make their own decisions on what stories should go on what pages.


In its basic form, a planning tool is used to say something like "reporter Jim's story about the governor should go in 2 columns, 8 inches on page 3 of Tuesday's edition." This allows the paginators to start work on page 3 of Tuesday's edition and set aside the space (or "slot") that will be needed for the governor story, independent of whether or not Jim has written this story yet.

 Before planning tools, "Jim" might know he was assigned to have his story done by Tuesday, and the paginator might know to put Jim's forthcoming story on page 3 of Tuesday's paper. However, these kinds of details were usually tracked separately, on hand-written notes or emails. A planning tool replaces these ancient manual processes with a software program that provides a user interface, searchable/sortable content, and a graphical color-coded display signifying which stories are ready and which are not. This planning tool also assigns clear responsibility to the individuals involved.

Today, the planning step may occur before stories are even written or assigned. In this case, another component of a planning tool would be an assignment tool. The assignment tool sends the assignments to reporters and photographers, plus specifies a deadline for when the story and photos must be ready for the paginator.

One of the most useful editorial content management features we have identified is the integration of the planning tool with the pagination tool. In Jazbox, the planning tool (OnePlan) can email a reporter a story assignment, email a photographer a photo assignment to accompany the reporter's story, and create "dummy" files in the database that the reporter will eventually fill with content when the story is ready. Inside InDesign, we provide a panel that displays a list of stories and photos that are expected (based on information entered using the planning tool) to be placed on a page. Once the reporter fills in the text of the dummy story, the paginator will then see that the story is ready to go and can drag it from the panel onto the designated page. There is no database searching required, no hunting through emails to decide which story goes on which page, and less opportunity for human error across the board.

Often the biggest obstacle in acceptance of a planning tool is that staff members are not organized enough to plan with any real level of detail. Extensive use of a planning tool takes away much of the last-minute decision-making about the layout of a newspaper. However, at the larger sites there may be sufficient staff (and self-discipline!) for a planning tool to be accepted and enforced as the central component of planning the layout of each edition. Plus, in the event that late-breaking news becomes more important than the previously budgeted stories, the paginator can always ignore the planning of a page and instead substitute different content.

About The Author




Chuck Johnson is the Jazbox Product Manager at MediaSpan Group Inc.  He is responsible for the development and support of the Jazbox product suite on all platforms and combinations, including Windows and MacOS X, Solaris and AIX, and both Informix and Oracle.

In Chuck's current role he is involved with every aspect of the Jazbox product, from customer issues to new development, from internal training to product documentation.  He acts as a system architect for major additions to the Jazbox suite, and he oversees a team of very experienced developers.

Chuck started as an editorial software engineer for Harris Controls and Composition back in 1990, which eventually evolved into today's MediaSpan Group Inc.  He has been a developer and designer for Jazbox, Newsmaker, IQue, the 2100, and the PLS 8900, and he remains fluent in many (computer) languages.  He has previously served as a product lead on the XP21 server product, and as a development project lead many times.

Chuck enjoys discussing politics, listening to live rock music, racing his Mustang, and his two cats.  Chuck's wife likes the music and the cats.