Also: please don’t send your lone Asian American reporter out to cover LNY. If this is your only coverage of Asian American life, you’re doing it wrong.

For god’s sake, this is not the time for a segment on food where Asian food is deemed strange and weird.

Both things I’ve personally witnessed.

One last thing: it took several months, off season, for us to build that set of resources. This is not a two day sprint. It takes editors, reporters, data, SEO, and developers working together with a shared goal: be an information hub for our communities in all instances.

These are opinions, but based on my 20some years in breaking news.

LA orgs are doing a good job of getting info out. I see you.

The point of my ramble is the fires are a prime example of why breaking news can get easier if planned for. (I’m grateful Chris et al helped us think this through, btw)

Though 5: liveblogs

People reading live blogs are likely those watching/worrying. If you lost your home, you’re not in a state to scroll a liveblog to find what you need.

Blogs are easy for us, but in a true emergency they’re not for the public. I personally prefer a structured updating story.

Thought 4: How you will cover matters as much as what you cover. Avoid burnout with plans.

BEFORE the emergency know: where do people live? How do we decide lead editor? How do we assign reporting shifts? Do photographers have the right gear?

Update these plans yearly. Update gear yearly.

Thought 3: utility, not SEO. That landing page is your home page for the emergency. Lay out areas for essentials. The latest for each fire. Latest response. Fact checks. Guides. Resources. A map. Chronology is less important. An ugly list of past reporting at the bottom is fine. Kill the damn ads.

Thought 2: fire season is yearly. Same for hurricanes, etc. when it is not said season, get your team together to build infrastructure. At reportedly and NowThis, we structured breaking news into categories and worked out how we’d mobilize in each. We should have also built landing pages in advance.

This sounds easy, but with most CMSs it takes time and effort to build a big page with links out to everything.

Thought one: It doesn’t have to be nicely designed. In fact, it needs to look as simple as possible bc most people will be viewing said info on a cell phone.

I’ve been thinking about why I pushed to build this, as I watch a place I love burn and try to keep up with news. LA journalists are tired and overworked right now.

I believe with planning you can make their job easier. The thing is as simple as this: make it easy to find the crucial information.

It is still up and sort of functioning! My last baby that we shipped before I left. www.azcentral.com/storytelling...

Useful for any western state, though it centers on AZ

I do too but honestly I never aspire to get up at 5 am just to meditate for 30 min. I am OK with 10 min at 730.

If you read the newsletter you'll see another announcement in there, but I'll save that for another day (prob later this week). For now, I hope you enjoy the booklet! I'm printing mine out and doing it this weekend.

Buttondown is also totally independent and small. When I had issues the founders have emailed me, and I prefer to support indie developers.

If you're even more curious the 2024-25 booklet will include a few tweaks but sticks to the general process.

I think I am most concerned with not annoying folks who signed up for The Middles to get leadership thoughts.

This is the 2022-2023 booklet if you’re curious. www.dropbox.com/s/kl9hjceo3o...