An in-depth look at newspaper construction

The last few newspaper editions have been what I describe as 70-email and 100-missed-phone-call days.

Every day I wake up to anywhere from at least 50 and up to 70 or more emails. Of those, only a dozen or two usually require responses. I have a system. I drag emails to various boxes for their intended purposes. I have an inbox for the Star Eagle, the Pioneer and the Golden Link and under those inboxes I create sub-boxes where I can drag emails based on my designation. I need boxes for advertisements–one with approvals, another with questions still needing input. I get many questions about pricing, subscriptions and invoices. I have a box for that.

As I put all the pieces in place to create the week’s edition, I refer back to those boxes. If everything were not categorized for quick recall and reference, I would spend hours just looking for information and input.

Many people may not be aware that the amount of paid advertising dictates how many pages will be cost effective for the week’s edition. Because of this, advertisements go onto the pages first. When it comes to legal advertisements, I create the ad and place it on the appropriate page, then send a “proof” (a copy of the ad), along with the cost to the advertiser. Every advertisement you see in the paper, I have communicated with that advertiser at some point regarding its content. All of the articles for that matter, I’ve discussed with our writers.

It’s a lot of information.

With this being an election year, last week I woke up to 60 emails on Monday and another 70 on Tuesday. Today, a week later, I again woke up to numerous emails and missed calls.

I miss many calls on Mondays and Tuesdays: I generally answer only if I see the number and feel confident a conversation with the caller will advance the work at hand.

There’s just so much to go through.

Recently, I started working on Saturdays in addition to Sundays. It has made my weeks, my life, infinitely easier. I put together the Star Eagle (as much as I can, that is) on Saturday. On Sunday I do the same for the Pioneer. (I also put together the Golden Link Shopper on Saturday.)

With the general framework in place, I can use Monday and Tuesday to tackle the stack of emails, missed calls, text messages and in-person messages needed to refine the details.

Once I finish going through the pile of messages, I prioritize them, then tackle each one in turn. After I’m done, usually hours later, I finish putting the new bits of information, ads, and more in the paper. Late Monday evening, I send the assembled pages in electronic format to my respective editors for review.

I do not read every article in the paper. (For context, this week’s Star Eagle had more than 10,000 words. The Pioneer 20,000. A novel is usually at least 40,000 words.) By the time Monday is done, I’ve put in a full workday on Saturday, anywhere from 8 to 14 hours on Sunday and another 8 to 16 hours on Monday.

Tuesday is spent making corrections–those from my editors regarding the news items and headlines, and those from any advertising proofs sent out Sunday and Monday. There are also inevitably last-minute changes and additions.

There’s no way to prepare in advance for what can’t be predicted, so I have to be ready for anything from restructuring pages because of a news story or ad, or even adding pages.

In one recent case, I received a request for a full-page advertisement (delight!) after the submission deadline (disservice!). But because of the way papers are printed, I can’t add only one page, I have to add two.

So in addition to the requested full-page ad, I also had to assemble an unanticipated page of news copy and photos.

Thankfully, because of my hard-working writers, we were not lacking in available content. A good average time for physically constructing a newspaper page is an hour, so, along with the extra challenges, I now had to devote an extra two hours to assembling a paper which otherwise would have been essentially complete.

All right, so by Tuesday morning (barring surprises) I have organized and reviewed nearly a novel’s worth of information, and have placed it all out neatly on model pages–still all in electronic format–in preparation for printing. I have sent the completed pages for my editors to review, and am now receiving their observations, suggestions, and occasional ribs. It’s now time to begin making corrections to both the Star Eagle and Pioneer. The corrections can be a bit of an Easter egg hunt: they may be in the text of stories, in the information printed under the pictures, in the headlines or in other text in various nooks and crannies. Sometimes they regard photographs themselves–maybe the wrong one was used by mistake, or maybe there is some aesthetic element that needs attention.

After all of these corrections have been incorporated, I review the appearance of each page to make sure the spacing is correct, that the references to “jumped” article continuations are consistent, and just generally that I am satisfied with the nearly-finished version of the week’s edition.

With all that done, I do some of my own proofreading. I read stories I feel must be read (if I hadn’t already).

I generally read my own articles two or three more times to make sure I said what I intended.

I check the headlines, double check names and other details in the obituaries, confirm all of the advertisements are accounted for and triple check that I have read all of my emails.

It's usually at this point a last-minute obituary is submitted and I must take a piece of content out of the paper to make room for it.

Once I’m finally done proofing and correcting, I send the final electronic version of the paper to the printer; because of time schedules for the presses, this must be no later than 5 p.m. on Tuesday. (If I am late, the paper is late, which sometimes happens.)

Wednesdays are the closest thing to a day off I get.

I wake up and immediately go to the post office, after I prepare some paperwork, to deliver our forms to allow the paper to be mailed.

I then relax–at least as compared to the days before–and start tackling some of that “to-do” list from my email box. In three days, the cycle starts over.