A Day at The Post

The staff editors pretend to work hard during a Sunday in the newsroom.

Sunday, Oct. 22, 2006

Planning the week
After a long Homecoming weekend, the staff editors trickled in around 2 p.m. for our weekly Week Ahead meeting, during which we talk about each staff’s stories for the week. Editor Brittany Kress always brings food, because she said research shows that food makes people happy; it certainly makes Week Ahead a less grueling meeting.

Each writing staff — city, campus, culture and sports — highlights each day’s stories for the forthcoming week, fielding questions from one another and the executive editors. This week included a discussion about Halloween coverage. City Editor Kantele Franko has selected a lucky sober reporter to write the story. The other reporters will be working in shifts. The quotes will be compiled on the Sunday after Halloween (usually known as one of the busiest days at The Post).

After going through the staff stories, we all helped pick out centerpieces for the week, which is a routine we started this year, partially because of our new emphasis on design. The centerpieces are subject to change, but it helps prepare us for what days are photo light and what days will have tough competition for front-page art. The staff editors are very good at promoting their own stories as well as suggesting other staff’s stories. In past years, this cooperation has not been as apparent to me.

Budget
Monday’s eight-page paper included a lot of Homecoming coverage. We had planned on a centerpiece about the women’s groups on campus since last week’s Week Ahead (Women unite for women: Herstory group honors ‘foremothers who hit the bricks’). However, the Bobcats beating Buffalo probably had more audience appeal, and the women’s march moved to secondary art. (‘Cats crush Bulls) The top news story on the page was a shoe-in: Board of Trustees meeting coverage (Faculty voice discontent to trustees ) from Bethany Furkin and Sean Gaffney. In light of scandal at Ohio University, this first scheduled Board of Trustees meeting was sure to be important.

While Brittany budgeted the staff stories in relation to the ads on the page, I searched The Associated Press wire to find copy to fill the holes. It is relatively easy to find important plugger these days, with the election in the waning weeks. Wire copy is often a juggle to decide what is more important than other things, but I generally favor local or state news, especially with the upcoming elections. Information on North Korea (the other editors have heard me say, “We’re all going to die soon!”) is an example of a world/nation story of import that I try to put in the paper.

Right: The staff editors snuggle in for an impromptu budget meeting in our disgusting lounge instead of our usual meeting room upstairs in Baker Center.

From the editorial board
Editorial decisions are made by the four executive editors, including myself. Some decisions require more debate than others. Today’s eddy discussion was what Associate Editor Justin Thompson, who leads the discussion and is in charge of the opinion page, called “eddy light.” It was a lighthearted commentary on the joys of Homecoming — rare positive fluff to run on page two (Home sweet home: Reserved yet rambunctious weekend party shows that OU can enjoy itself without cops) . We then brushed on a few more serious topics to come later in the week.

From a staff editor
“I hate people,” said Campus Editor Rick Rouan, half jokingly referring to his frustration with a variety of aspects of their staff. With low staffing issues and yet high scandal at the university, staffs at The Post have been treading water all quarter. Rouan gave examples of his frustration: Meghan McNamara, a hard-working campus reporter, will be leaving next quarter to study abroad. Another reporter made a reporting error requiring us to write a correction for Monday’s paper.

Correction
In Sean Gaffney’s plagiarism story on Friday, the president was referred to as the provost.

To explain our policy: We run corrections on page three for factual errors and Brittany manually fixes them on the web with a note that it has been updated (Plagiarism review board up for vote). This is a clear-cut example of a factual reporting error (sometimes we attribute errors to copy editing or source errors), but most reporters make mistakes like this at some point.

“It was a blatant inaccuracy that was careless and irresponsible,” said Assistant Managing Editor Matt Burns.

The buzz
Today’s newsroom was treated with a Homecoming visitor of our own, former copy editor Cheryl Sadler (pictured below), who is now a copy editor with the Times Recorder in Zanesville.

“It still smells a little funny in here. And the first thing I noticed is that the temperature is not comfortable,” she said about her reunion with the newsroom.

The overheating was a rather uncomfortable problem all day. We have no control over the heat, and so we blasted air conditioning at the same time. It could be why this Post executive editor found herself completely ill the next morning.

Cheryl is not exaggerating about the smell. Over a year ago, a sewage overflow happened in the newsroom. The bathroom never recovered:

Culture Editor Caitlin Price calls this The Silence of the Lambs bathroom. We are very excited for our new office in the new student center.