Deadlines
A brief lesson on journalism
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." — Douglas Adams
Deadlines are what separate journalism from mere writing. If you witness something important, you can take weeks, months or even years to detail what happened in your diary. People regularly share their recollection of historical events decades after the fact. But that’s not journalism.
That’s not to say that every piece of journalism is written within hours or even days. Magazine articles can take weeks to write, and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporters are sometimes working with their heads down for months before their byline appears. But even in those rare cases where editors are feeling particularly charitable, there is a deadline and it is almost always agreed upon in advance. There is no journalism without deadlines.
For most journalists, deadlines determine the very rhythm of their day. A reporter cranking out five-paragraph pieces for an online content mill may have three or four deadlines before lunch. An Associated Press reporter working on breaking news may have to file an initial story called a first-lede writethru in a few minutes, then update and add more information throughout the day. A TV news producer will write and edit right up until the show is on air — and in some cases, even during it, updating the text on the Teleprompter during an ad break.
Longer deadlines are considered more prestigious because they are associated with in-depth reporting at legacy publications such as The New Yorker, but there are drawbacks. It is a paradox of journalism that more generous deadlines are actually more stressful. A story with a deadline further in the future will need to justify its existence with hard-to-get details and colorful, novelistic writing. Longer deadlines are also a breeding ground for writer’s block: more time to think about the story also means more time to overthink the story. Plus, there’s always a chance that a piece with a later deadline might be scooped by a reporter at a rival publication or be overtaken by events and become old news.
For journalists starting out on their careers, the best places to work are those with tight deadlines. For one thing, it is perhaps the only cure for persistent writer’s block — exposure therapy for writers who fear writing. Turning out copy on short deadlines will also help you learn to write fast, and you’ll rack up a body of work quickly. Some of those stories may even be good, and you can show them off to try to land a job where you won’t be on such a tight deadline all the time.
That’s not to say that writing fast is a newcomer’s game. No matter where you work or how many years of experience you have, news will break and you will need to write fast. If you can’t meet deadline, that’s going to hurt your career prospects. If it happens enough early in your career, it will basically end it. By the same token, even if your prose is workaday and your analysis unenlightening, you can always find a job somewhere in journalism if you are known for meeting deadlines. As the legendary journalist A.J. Liebling reportedly said, “I can write faster than anyone who can write better, and I can write better than anyone who can write faster.”
In the early days of journalism, deadlines were determined by technology. Journalists working at the first news sheets in the 17th century had to report and write in time to send it out with the next postal delivery, so news could only travel as fast as a horse. The invention of the telegraph in the middle of the 19th century allowed news to travel at the speed of an electromagnetic wave, leading to the creation of the Associated Press, Reuters and other wire services that distribute stories to newspapers around the country.
In the beginning of the 20th century, newspapers began to compete with each other on daily deadlines, printing multiple editions in order to have the latest news. The first edition, which went to press the night before, was called the one-star or “bulldog edition” and went to the outer reaches of the newspaper’s circulation area. It was a bulldog edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune which featured the infamously inaccurate “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline. Later editions had more up-to-date news.
By the mid 20th century, broadcast news had changed all that. As more people who wanted breaking news could get it from their radio or television, print reporters had to borrow a few tricks from their colleagues in magazines to explain the news more. In 1960, nine out of every 10 articles about the presidential election in the New York Times mostly described the day’s campaign events, notes Jill Lepore in her book “The Deadline.” By the 1976 election, more than half interpreted what those events meant as well.
With the creation of CNN in 1980, CNBC in 1989 and Fox News and MSNBC in 1996, the 24-hour news cycle accelerated those trends with its insatiable demand for breaking news. The launch of the world wide web in 1989 then removed the final technological barrier to publishing instantaneously, eventually putting every news outlet on the same circadian rhythm. Everyone is now in the breaking news business.
Whether they work in broadcast, a legacy print publication or a new online outlet, many reporters will now turn out something short to cover the latest news when it breaks, then shift to working on a more analytical take that can go up within hours — what used to be called a “day two story” or a “second-day lead.” The shelf life of breaking news is now minutes. For highly competitive business news services such as Bloomberg, scoops are literally measured in fractions of a second, and a story’s impact is determined by the immediate rise or fall of a stock mentioned in it.
These days, most deadlines change along with a newsroom’s ever-shifting strategy. An outlet might switch from writing fast hits on breaking news to posting more analysis, or vice versa, and internal deadlines will expand or contract accordingly. To stay competitive, journalists need to be able to write anything from a one-sentence breaking news headline going live a minute from now to a short blog post that’s due in 20 minutes to an analytical thinkpiece for tomorrow morning due by the end of the day.
There’s no deadline any more; just deadlines. You either learn to meet them or return to mere writing.
Really appreciate this piece. Deadlines can be tough—especially when you're just starting out—but they’re also one of the best ways to learn the business and improve the quality if your work. In my experience, deadlines bring focus, build confidence, and help you develop the muscle to keep going.
When I was leading teams, I’d often tell early-career reporters: it’s not about being fast just to be fast. It’s about trusting your instincts, getting the story out cleanly, and moving forward. The goal isn’t perfection—it’s progress, accuracy, and service to the audience.
Thanks for putting words to both the discomfort and the growth. It matters.
Longer deadlines are also a breeding ground for writer’s block: absolutely, if I've been writing this piece for three days, I will spend three more just getting my point across, dreading the topic more and more with each passing hour. Having a mix of deadlines works best for my brain and writing, too. I find it also helps with cross-sectionality.