Wide-area workers: publishers
dial into telecommuting

Welcome to the new frontier of telecommuting, where the rules, costs and benefits are still being defined.

Telecommuting embodies a range of activities and expectations. For some, it's the ability to file copy from a remote location. For others, it's the ability to dial in and exchange e-mail.

Here, we'll use the term "telecommuting" to mean working from home in a completely interactive fashion -- where a reporter or editor is able to do everything he or she could do at the office, except spill coffee on a fellow employee's keyboard.

Jay Watrous is a copy editor and backup slot man for the Phoenix Gazette. He has muscular dystrophy and has used a wheelchair since 1976.

Fifteen months ago, he had to give up driving his specially equipped van and began asking his supervisor if it would be possible for him to work from home at least part-time. The answer: yes.

The Gazette is a System Integrators Inc. System/55 site. We installed one of SII's Coyote cards in Watrous's '386 PC. He connects to the office via a 9600-bps modem and a second telephone line, leaving one line free for chats with other editors when necessary.

After a month-long installation ordeal (see sidebar Page 6), we brought Watrous on-line in mid-May. Now he works three days a week from his home and takes the bus to work the other two days.

"Going down twice a week seemed to be a good idea so as not to lose contact with everyone else who was working on the desk," Watrous explained. He had spent the previous two years working primarily from The Gazette's zone office closest to his home, so he had experience with being what he calls "a remote copy editor."

Working from a remote location has limitations.

"I can't write cutlines, because I can't see the photos," he said. Similarly, when he's in the slot at home, he can't review cutlines written by others. And when there's a shortage of text to edit, he can't help out with proofreading chores.

However, Watrous hopes that a new editorial system will offer true WYSIWYG display and the ability to view low-resolution displays of graphics in the database, resolving both problems.

The advantages far outweigh the drawbacks -- starting with the fact that commuting by bus adds three hours to Watrous's workday. (He lives 16 miles from the paper's downtown headquarters, and Phoenix is not noted for the efficiency of its mass transit system.)

Better yet, he can listen to classical music while he works. "I don't have any distractions," he said. "It's just me and the work. Anybody I want to communicate with is just a message away."

While he doesn't have access to all the reference materials available to other copy editors, he makes do with little difficulty. He keeps his dictionary and AP Stylebook handy; he consults the paper's stylebook on-line. For most other reference needs, he turns to the Microsoft Bookshelf, which he has on CD-ROM.

Since 1982, reporters and editors have been telecommuting for the Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Mass.

The paper covers about two dozen communities spread over a 60-mile area south of Boston, and it encourages reporters to live in the communities they cover. Most of them work out of their homes.

Paul Williams, systems editor, says the paper first gave its reporters desktop units made by Telcon and portables from PSI. As time passed, it upgraded to Tandy laptops, then to Macintoshes and Intel-compatible PCs.

In the mid-'80s, the paper began providing PCs equipped with Send/Fetch software from Computerease Software Inc. of Warren, R.I., which allows interactive access to the paper's Atex editorial system. The Patriot Ledger is now upgrading its reporters' equipment to Computerease's newer WordMover software.

With a properly equipped PC, reporters and editors can send and receive messages, download and upload stories, and view directories.

Williams estimates three dozen reporters and editors telecommute regularly. Most editors do the bulk of their editing at the newspaper's main office, but they do handle some chores from home.

If reporters don't have a computer or a modem, the paper provides them, he said.

During the early days of the system, "I really got to know the back roads of the South Shore area trying to keep that stuff running," Williams recalled.

A major advantage of the paper's investment in telecommuting comes when snowstorms hit the area.

"It has allowed us to have our reporters in the field continue to file," he said. "That's a godsend in trying to get the paper out."

In Sayreville, N.J., Lea Bayers Rapp is a dedicated telecommuter. The author of 20 books, Rapp has written stories and columns for the Star-Ledger in Newark, the New York Times, USA Today and New Jersey Monthly.

She began working out of her home 12 years ago with an Apple IIe, "which I almost threw out the window in frustration over changing from a typewriter. But when I realized what replacing that bay window would cost, I decided to stick with it."

She's now using a '486 Intel-based PC with two hard drives, tape backup, modem and CD-ROM. She also has a fax machine and a copier, and her workspace has spread out from a corner of the family room to take over the entire room -- "much to my family's dismay."

One of her more memorable telecommuting experiences came several years ago when she was working as a senior editor at a magazine based in New York City.

"I was facing deadline on a complicated piece and my boss allowed me to telecommute for a day. The result was that I was able to turn in three days' worth of work in one day. And the quality was better, too, without the normal office interruptions.

"Additionally, I was able to spend the four hours I normally would have spent commuting working instead."

For Rapp, telecommuting means "I'm able to be far more productive than I ever was before because I cut out all the travel time. It gives me a competitive edge."

Are there other advantages? "I also save a lot on dry-cleaning bills."

Across the country in San Jose, Calif., the Mercury News has four full-time telecommuting employees, according to Ed Holzinger, assistant systems editor.

They are correspondents based in Hanoi, Tokyo, Mexico City and Los Angeles. Using modems, they dial into San Jose's System/55 editorial system using SIIAPI.

While this product does not give them the functionality that Jay Watrous has with his Coyote card, it does allow them to send and receive messages, view directories of stories, and download, edit and upload stories.

All four use monochrome IBM ThinkPad 350s running Windows and LotusWrite, a forerunner to Ami Pro. Their machines are equipped with macros and a Basic program developed by former Systems Editor Bob Hucker to automate dialing in and uploading text files.

While they exchange phone calls with their editors from time to time, "for the most part, they do their communicating through the system," Holzinger noted.

Bill Pitzer, the former news/graphics editor of the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., took advantage of telecommuting to set up what he calls a "virtual design studio" in Bridgeport, W. Va.

After 12 years in the newspaper business, he established Pitzographics in 1992 and now provides features to National Geographic, the Associated Press, Computer World and others.

Pitzer works out of a studio he designed into his home. What started him on the road to his current career was a part-time job creating infographics for the short-lived sports daily, The National, while he was still with the Virginian-Pilot.

Among his tasks is creating a weekly illustrated feature for the National Geographic Society called GeoFacts, distributed by the New York Times Syndicate in English and Spanish.

"Using a phone, fax and my Mac, I design and draw the feature," Pitzer said. "The main text block is provided by the NGS News Service and sent as a text file from their IBMs via CompuServe. The translator who does the Spanish version works in New York City and sends me the text the same way."

(A major piece on endangered species that he created appears in the March issue of National Geographic.)

The only major problems he has encountered have been snowstorms that knocked out electricity. Fortunately, he wasn't close to deadline when the storms hit.

"I've even managed to do some breaking-news graphics," he said. "I had a contract with the Charleston (W. Va.) Gazette and did a Page One graphic on a chemical leak on deadline from my studio.

"I spoke with reporters and editors on the phone, used my fax to obtain some research material, did the graphic and sent it right to the newsroom via AppleTalk Remote Access."

Joan Holstein works for Journal/Sentinel Inc. in Milwaukee, but she isn't bothered by Wisconsin winters -- she telecommutes from her home in Mesa, Ariz.

Working for the paper's marketing services department, Holstein produces house ads, sales materials and radio commercials.

She held a similar position at Phoenix Newspapers Inc. until last fall, when she was hired as a full-time telecommuter by her former supervisor at PNI, Cindy Yomantas, who had joined the Milwaukee papers several years ago.

Initially, Holstein faxed her material to Milwaukee and received assignments and information by return fax. Since November, she's been a part of the paper's network and logs on from her Macintosh IIfx via 9600-bps modem.

Holstein rises early, putting in 90 minutes at work before getting her two children up for school. After fixing their breakfast and walking them to the bus, she returns to her Mac and works the rest of the day.

The best part of the job is the flexibility to set her own schedule. Among other things, it allows her to put in several hours of volunteer work at school each week.

And family issues can come first. Several weeks ago, her daughter sprained her ankle at school, and Holstein was there within five minutes to take her to the doctor.

"If I'd still have been working at PNI (in downtown Phoenix), it would have taken me 45 minutes and I wouldn't have been back to work that day," she said. As it was, she brought her daughter home from the doctor, then logged on and finished her day's work.

"It's been positive all the way," she said of her telecommuting experience. "The paper gets its stuff faster. I can be more productive. I'm not tied up in meetings or hallway conversations.

"It's been great."