It’s not what it looks like on TV. Or in the movies.
But then most jobs aren’t.
While the entertainment industry sometimes gets some things right about the newsroom and creating the news products you see around you every day, there’s a lot that happens behind the scenes that you don’t ever see. And you probably wouldn’t want to, unless you’re they type that likes to watch paint dry or grass grow. That’s because all those boring details that you have to go through in your job? We’ve got them in our job, too. No surprise those don’t make the movie, or if they do they’re cut together in a 30 second musical “time passes” montage.
Which isn’t to say that we don’t have those moments of excitement that play so well on the big and small screen. It’s just not the everyday of the news business. Look at the stories in any paper — they’re not all exposés, after all, or the career or community defining moments that will be remembered for decades to come. Or made into a Hollywood script.
I’ve never seen anyone running down the halls yelling “stop the presses” for example. We have been sitting at our computers typing madly with fire in our eyes as deadline looms and pre-press wants those pages, now, and we’re still waiting for that final phone call that will make or break the story.
But often the creation of the paper is more akin to the careful putting together of a jigsaw puzzle, without the finished picture as a guide. While all those stories that make the news every day may not be the heralds of a titanic shift in society, that’s not to say that they aren’t important. They’re about whether to build the traffic circle at the congested intersection which will affect your daily commute, or the tax increase you’re facing this year, or the community event you want to go to on Saturday.
Putting it all together into a coherent whole is no simple task. We want to present a good mix of news, so if you’re not interested in one item in the paper, maybe another catches your eye, and yet another one catches the eye of your wife, or your son or your brother. We don’t want everything to be doom and gloom, we want some fun stuff for you to read, too. It’s not all bad news. But we also want to present the things that are vital to the community in a prominent way. And it all balances out with the advertising. And if something breaks, we’ve got to rearrange on the fly — that’s when the adrenaline starts pumping.
My goal is a paper that is relevant to as many people as possible, entertaining you, but also telling you the things you need to and want to know.
It may not be the stuff of film, but picking up a new edition in the morning still gives me a sense of satisfaction.