Saturday, June 28, 2014

Most interesting job - Part III





 
(All photos in this post and all others on this site, copyrighted by Louise R. Shaw)

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Most interesting job - Part II

Monday morning started with a groundbreaking ceremony for a new county library 20 minutes north of here. Photographs, notes for a story. Drove the back roads to the office, stopping to take pictures of election signs, construction projects, flowers. Then to the office to write stories on a public hearing, an art workshop, a community festival and teen awards. Wrote cut-lines for photos. Laid out a youth page and set up a photo page. Debated a new header for an ad. Monday night, photographed a community play, processed and sent in photos. 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., with a break for dinner.

Tuesday morning put the finishing touches on the pages, proofed and finalized my own stories. Proofed obituary and sports pages, debated a questionable ad. Ran out to shoot photos of primary election balloting. Proofed some more. Made phone calls, reached out to contacts for a story on the election. Home for dinner and laundry. When polls closed at 8, checked results and began a story. With final results for the night in an hour later, got story finished and in by 10 p.m. Proofed a story on a late city meeting covered by another reporter, at 11:30 p.m.

Never dull. Way fun. 

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Just a taste of the most interesting job in the world


It is impossible to describe the things that go on at a weekly newspaper with a small staff on deadline day.

Decisions must be made on everything from what goes on the front page to which photo best represents an event and how to handle certain letters-to-the-editor. People must be contacted, different people must be contacted when the first people are not available, stories must be written, photos must be found, cut-lines must be tweaked, breaking news dealt with, headlines made to fit while still representing the story, changes to page size managed, proofing carefully done even when there's a hurry, I could go on.

Likewise, there's nothing to compare with the feeling when it all comes together, and it works.

And if it's not perfect after that, we can know we did absolutely everything we could with the time, the people and the resources that we had.

And then we'll do it again next week.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Can you guess?


 







These views all have water somewhere. Can you guess what else they have in common?