DON T dawdle. Be prepared, if your plan is approved, to deliver the results on schedule, maybe even ahead of schedule. Nothing is more irritating than deadlines not met. Editors understand this when it comes to producing the daily newspaper. They need to take the same approach in dealing with product enhancements.
Smart editors create allies in other departments before laying out the plan to the publisher.
In that editor s presentation, besides what the content would be and where that content would come from and how much that content would cost in resources, I also want to know what readers in particular are being targeted and why, how it would fit into our production cycle, how much news hole and how many pages the editor has in mind, ideas for marketing it, and reasons advertisers would support it. It s pretty hard for a publisher to resist a project that has the support of most of the departments. There s also no substitute for real passion and a willingness to stick out one s neck. I guess it boils down to the fact that an editor has to approach the role with a whole-newspaper mentality, Shen said. In fact, editors at small newspapers probably don t have much patience with these discussions, because they do most everything.