B-matter
B-matter: The essential background information for a night story that can be written ahead of time to save precious minutes on deadline.
1. Identify stories that will require filing B-matter and live top as early as possible, but before 2:30 pm in all cases.
2. A front end conversation between reporter and editor sets the following parameters: length and deadline of B-matter; what it should contain; what live top should contain; drop deadline for live top; how live top will be filed: by phone, by email, by remote laptop. Who can reporter contact beforehand to line up live quotes for story? The front end conversation is a must if things are to go smoothely at deadline.
3. Consistency of editor. Ideally, one editor should edit both B-matter and live top. When that’s not possible, the first editor should finish editing B-matter before reporter leaves for assignment and inform second editor precisely what needs to be done, when. That information should be reflected in the budget line.
4. Don’t overwrite B-matter. Write a realistic length, leaving adequate space for live reporting. For instance, public hearing stories obviously depend on capturing the comments of the public: keep B-matter to a bare minimum. On the other hand, stories that depend on votes (ordinances, contracts, etc.) should be esentially whole with B-matter, putting alternative ledes in notes mode. In almost all cases B-matter is the back story, the context, the background. It answers the question how we got to this point? But sometimes B-matter can also include pre-written reaction to something you know is going to happen.
5. In all cases, B-matter must be read and edited before reporter leaves for assignment.
6. Discuss backout schedule with your editor: The top has to be turned in by, say, 9 p.m. That means the reporter has to start writing at, say, 8:15 p.m. That means the reporter can only attend the first, say, 45 minutes of the meeting or event. That means the reporter should arrive 15 minutes early and get some live quotes from the participants or audience.
7. Reporters must stick to the gameplan: if they are supposed to file a top at, say, 9 p.m., they cannot call at 9:15 and ask for another 10 minutes. When such things happen, editors are well within their rights to kill the story. Indeed, where there’s some doubt about getting the story on time, editors are smart to prepare a substitute story from the wire or elsewhere.
8. Reporters must not, under any circumstances, change B-matter that has already been edited without first notfiying the editor and getting approval. If changes are required, tell editor!!!
9. Don’t overwrite top. Editors don’t have time on deadline to cut articles, and it’s not necessary to do so, if the B-matter and top are both held to agreed-upon lengths.
10. After filing top, reporters should always remain reachable until the newspaper goes to bed, in order to check facts.
-Jonathan Maslow, Herald News, Oct. 2006