After much anticipation, the eight-person newsroom efficiency study team held a Q&A session today about their report, which is now available for download. Their newsroommates had anywhere between 20 and 30 questions to ask about the report. Scroll down for them - but keep in mind that the questions and answers were about a newsroom structure that does not exist right now.

"We don't pretend that this is the answer," said producer Andrew Zahler, one of the eight, emphasizing that this is only a starting point for idea-storming.

There's been both support and criticism from inside and outside the newsroom during the brainstorm process, in which eight younger staffers were asked to conduct a massive efficiency study in 11 days and within a few open guidelines.

"If it's any consolation, they got rid of all the assistant managing editors," joked assistant managing editor Carla Savalli when someone brought up concern about idea of moving and transferring the staff.

THE ORIGINAL INSTRUCTIONS
The study was about how news content is produced, the involved publishing steps, how it gets to the outside world, and whether there is duplication of effort or lack of steps. The reason editor Steve Smith chose younger staffers was that they have less of a 'stake' in newsroom structure and are less attached to 'institutional memory,' he said at an earlier meeting. They were told to not eliminate any sectors of coverage (Voices, Business, for example), can't eliminate the print newspaper product, must conform to Spokane Editorial Society (union) requirements, ratio of editors to reporters should stay the same, can't hire or fire anybody.

PROBLEMS THEY WANTED TO SOLVE:

» Work pile-up at the end of the day as the news team approaches newspaper printing time (bottleneck)
» A decrease in amount of casual idea-bouncing conversations between reporters and editors
» Need for better communication among publishing platforms - print, radio, photo, multimedia

AMONG THE MAJOR SUGGESTIONS IN THE REPORT:

» To convert the S-R to a Noon deadline, like an afternoon paper, instead of having an evening deadline
» To have a universal grouping of copy editors, and more of them, who edit each story and trim them to size for layout and publishing on the page
» Grouping all reporters into one major category, so that a features reporter or a neighborhoods reporter can write content that is used in any or many sections ("desegregation of content" - Carla)
» Flattening the hierarchy to remove one 'level' of management
» Combining photo and multimedia staff into a Visuals department to share talent

Click in for the questions...

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