Great story. Can you add some words, please?

Brevity. Conciseness. Using words wisely. It's something I try to teach my students. And it's something I hope every good journalist appreciates. But what about the publishers? I guess it depends on which type of publisher you are -- the type who cares about news and understands the business or the type who buys a newspaper to make money. (Can anyone say "oxymoron"?)

It seems that the latter type of publisher is in charge of the Tribune Company, which owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and one of my favorites, the Hartford Courant.

A recent story in Editor & Publisher noted that the Tribune Company is planning to measure reporter productivity by the number of column-inches reporters produce. For all of you with real jobs, a column-inch is a measure used by newspaper people. It's based on a six-column newspaper page. Multiply one standard column across by one inch down and you get a column-inch. This is useful when selling adds and planning newspaper sections.

So what does the length of a story have to do with how well the reporter does his or her job? That's a good question. I mean, like, I guess I could think of something, but right now I'm much too busy padding this paragraph to impress my boss. Oh, wait, I'm sorry, I'm not a reporter for the Tribune Company. My mistake. I'll just keep those extra words in for now. No sense taking any chances. You never know who's reading.

This Slate story, which I read on a friend's facebook page, says it much better than I ever could. It's by Michael Kinsley.

I have a related story about the subject of column-inches. When I got my first newspaper job, I was paid by column-inch. I had just completed my first year of college, and I worked as a correspondent for the sports section of the now-defunct Milford Citizen in southern Connecticut. I think I made $1.05 an inch my first summer and got a huge raise to $1.15 an inch after my sophomore year. It was a great experience. I covered some interesting stories and learned a lot from sports editor Dom Amore, who now covers baseball for the Hartford Courant.