Re: Concurrent writing and revision

[George Mena <George -dot- Mena -at- ESSTECH -dot- COM>]

Speaking as a journalist turned technical writer from a long time ago,
I've got to say Mark's right.

Freelance sportswriters, probably the most underpaid of the lot, often
have to be able to read their notes, and sometimes in the rain, esp.
during football season.  In reporting games (esp. high school and junior
college events), there's no instant replay -- but there *is* the battle
for the pay phone to get the story called in from out of town,
especially if the host school's football coach wants you to stay out of
his office, where a more private phone is.

Nor is there any instant replay of City Hall meetings unless (a) the TV
news boys are there and (b) they are actually foolish enough to give you
their videotape for the 10 o'clock news.

And graphics?  Great pictures of Dwight Clark's "The Catch" over Everson
Walls in the end zone at Candlestick back in 1982 are truly
once-in-a-lifetime shots that you just can't have reperformed simply
because your camera was out of film at the time.

Covering life as it happens is the real challenge for journalists.  It's
also great training for becoming a tech writer because you don't have
any time left to do it over.  You have to get it right the first time or
forget it.

Stick *that* in your tech comm program at the university level!  :D

Good call, Mark! :D

George

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Baker [SMTP:mbaker -at- OMNIMARK -dot- COM]
> Sent: Friday, July 31, 1998 1:53 PM
> To:   TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject:      Re: Concurrent writing and revision
>
        [George Mena]  snip
>
> It can be done. The content management system that my group uses
> allows us
> to accept design changes from development as little as one day before
> internal release, without loss of quality. If you think that's
> impressive,
> consider the achievement of the newspaper industry. They have a
> product with
> a market window of, at best, 24 hours, and they successfully create a
> new
> product every 24 hours to maintain their market position. If
> journalists can
> do it, why can't technical communicators?
>
>

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