President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

I’ve worked on deadline in news and sports, as both a reporter and a copy editor/paginator.

The thing that pissed off sports more than anything was, after working late on election night (for most reporters, this meant 10 or 11), their editors would tell them, “Oh, you can come in at 11 or noon tomorrow.”

As someone who’s done the late night to early morning turnaround too many times, without fanfare, I was not impressed.

 

Criminal immigrants from the U.S. have ruined the place, I hear.

 

The oppo-Lysistrata.

 

Can I sit in the corner and tie bonefish flies? Like some Clouser Minnows, Crazy Charlies and Avalon Shrimp?

 

I snicker at the whole "every night is Election Night" comeback despite putting a daily sports section together for a decade. That was easy peasy to me, even the dreaded Friday night high school football sections, because the workload ramps up to a peak by the time the press guys say they need the last page. You're basically waiting around for stuff to edit and paginate but it doesn't get overwhelming until right near the end. You usually are only holding the front, agate page and one inside roundup page.

And yeah, news sections are different because the deadline news editor rarely has to tear up the section front. I did it for the news crew for Princess Diana and the Oklahoma City bombing just because I had that experience of tearing up a layout at the last minute for an upset or a game that went overtime. Even though news has way more pages, all but the front are usually already on the press by deadline.

On the other hand, creating nine five-minute newscasts every morning in radio was the most deadline pressure I ever faced. I'd start clearing the AP wire and hammering on the typewriter as soon as I walked in the door at 4 a.m. and didn't stop until 9. Then I'd start calls for story ideas so the afternoon guy would have fresh stuff for the rest of the day. And got paid less than a substitute teacher for busting my ass.

 

I was meant to live 2500 years ago.

 

There was one night when I finally landed an interview with an Olympic boxer and the other half of the department was working at home since he was covering an all-star softball game in Fresno. So I laid out a lot of the front before I went to my lengthy interview, which was about three hours, including travel time. What could possibly happen? Matt Cain's perfect game. Thank goodness we were a p.m.

 

At the top of any resume worth its beans.

(So long as your car doesn't break down in Vacaville.)

 

Just like buying condoms at Walgreens, my guess is the guy won't even give it a second thought because he's on to the next person in line. (Not that the guy at the precinct is buying condoms. It's a comparitive narrative.)

 

And can I finally say this? "Hey CNN, the 'Magic Wall' is just a giant iPad!"

 

I covered that game a couple of years later. One of those where all 15 players on each team are in the batting order and they switch positions in the field a lot. One inning ended with a triple play. Until someone identified who was in on the play, I was going to write I Don't Know was at third base.

 

Let E.T. and Chong be exhibits 1 and 2, Your Honor.