[Nfb-editors] What staff is required to produce a newsletter

[Wunder, Gary]

We tried to form a team and say "The newsletter rests with all of you." It didn't work. A team may help if people are given specific tasks, but we seem to get the best results when one person's reputation rides on whether or not we get something out.

Getting contributions is tough. I offer this for whatever it is worth. A former editor in Missouri set a publication schedule. He asked for contributions and got promises. If those promises weren't honored and he came up short, he would sit down and write whatever he felt moved to write about: the evils of smoking; the need for leash laws; the obnoxious sounds of the trash trucks as they moved through town, sounding their ear-splitting beep beep beep. When confronted about the content of the newsletter and questioned about the relationship of his articles to blindness, his response was courteous but pointed: I print what I get.

It can be argued that the danger from smoking is not a blindness issue and perhaps even is a put-off to smokers, but what can't be argued is that we had a predictable newsletter and one that delivered the news that was sent on a timely basis. Those who growled the most about the inappropriate content were quick to get in their promised material, and seldom did we have the problem of newsletters repeatedly filled with off-topic material.

Gary