Memo to Reporting Staff at the Contra Costa Times, August 11, 2003

(note paragraphs 2, 3 and 4)

A few items this morning:

Habits are hard to break but they're easy to spot. We are in a habit
right now, given our political writing on the recall election, of using
labels to describe people more frequently than I would like.
We toss around labels like moderate, conservative, liberal, etc. as
though we are all in agreement about what these political labels mean
and as if our readers understand what we mean when we use them.
Please avoid the use of labels in your writing. It's fine if a political
pundit uses a label to describe someone, but as writers we should
refrain from using them ourselves. It's easy and it's lazy to label us
as moderate voters or label someone as a moderate Republican. It is much
more difficult, but more effective, to write without the use of such
labels. Try it.

OTHER STUFF. . .Page 1 story development and writing for the front page
is expected of every writer we have in all offices and all departments.
Some of you are in a different situation, given the fact you are
columnists and critics. But the majority of our writers, journalists
should strive every week to write for the front page of the newspaper.
That should be priority number 1 in everyone's world as a reporter.
Writing for the front page is the first criteria we use to evaluate
reporters in all offices and in all departments on an ongoing basis. I
am evaluating reporters on a continuous basis and will determine beat
changes, job changes based on aggressiveness and frequency that you
write for the front page and for your section front.

BREVITY. . .gets you $50. So far two reporters have received $50 for
writing a story 8 inches or less onto the front page. The last example
was Matt Krupnick, who for Saturday's paper delivered 6 inches of copy
that did not jump off the front page. This type of container story on
the front page is something we would like to accomplish on a consistent
basis. The material can be soft, hard or just informational like Matt's.
Think about it.

LAST THING. . .We are so much a better newspaper when we tell stories
and deliver strong human interest. We still don't do it enough. We don't
tell and find enough human interest for our pages. Outside of the Monday
profile, which brings us many interesting stories from all walks of life
(Chris Metinko's story on the puzzleman from Livermore is another fine
example), we don't consistently writing profiles or feature people
enough on the news pages. All reporters should do this regularly.

Thank you for your time.
Chris Lopez