COVERING Election Day

It's not just the gamers, it's the results as well. When you have two pages with results calls, plus other pages with the gamers, plus your AP wire stuff, it adds up. You're knocking out all those pages in an hour.

There might be two reporters at two separate games, plus a stringer. Photos from two different photogs. All coming in within a half hour. Plus, like I said, there's the national stuff. Night after night. If it's not football, it's high school basketball, with games that start late because the JV game runs too long.

I'd say it's quite comparable to Election Night. Except, like I said, no extended deadlines. No pizza. No congratulatory emails.

 

So you're saying that what you do is special, or is it part of your job?

 

Comments like this make me shake my head. News folks do ELECTIONS once a year, true. But most news folks I know have tight deadlines and high workloads on a regular basis. Big council or commissioners meeting? You need to have an immediate story for web that can be tweeted, plus a more in-depth one for later (if not the in-depth one right away). Big court case? Same thing. And that's to say nothing of breaking news involving police or fire calls, or just general big breaking news like major lawsuits, prominent person in the community suddenly resigning, major retailer coming to town, etc.
To say news folks only have it tough one night a year shows a complete lack of understanding for what news folks go through. I've done plenty of both sports and news over the years, straddling both at once in some shops. Currently I'm doing just news, while my co-worker does sports. I'm at meetings most nights; he's shooting sports most nights. By and large the only times he needs to update our Facebook page right away are Friday nights in the fall (and even then, I'm usually the one doing it for him). I've had far more breaking stories this year that had to be published immediately than him between murders, fires, police calls and court cases.

 

Again, you're talking one or two stories per night, tops, unless it's a large paper. Not five stories, plus three roundups, plus wire. In my experience, unless it's the night cops person, most of the news copy is in by 6 or 7 p.m.

 

... is the correct answer.

 

I've grown convinced that Baron is a performance artist or person who has never worked a day at a newspaper in his life.

 

Scott Pelley at CBS as they signed off Tuesday was asking a guest: "So which party worked the hardest getting their votes out?"
Dumbass.
Had to be a rushed thought when the producer whispered in his earpiece: "Ten seconds" and Pelley's mind disconnected.

 

Sorry, I've had multiple years over a decade in the biz. And it's not performance art.

So far, all the responses here have been, "We work hard too," and "You don't understand."

Nobody has addressed my points, which are that while a newsider may have to deal with one story on deadline on a infrequent basis, sports folks deal with multiple stories and roundups on a nightly basis. It has been my experience that new folks, unless it's their beat like cops, don't have drop-dead deadlines on a daily basis. They're told to get copy in by 6, and if it's 6:05 or 6:10, whatever. Sports guys get their copy in by 10:30, and if it's 10:31, they better have a damn good reason because they're holding up the presses.

Two examples given on here was one poster talking about how they and another person had six blank pages to fill in a half hour on Election Night, and Sunshine saying how he had to fill four pages with Redskins coverage in an hour. Both times, I've asked the question: Is that a special thing, or part of the job? So far, there have been no responses, by any of you critics, to that question.

And that's because either example proves that sports folks have it harder. Regarding the first example. If it's a special thing, then what is being said is that sports does special things all the time, because they do six pages in half an hour quite regularly. A cover, agate page, football story page, football roundup page, other roundup page, wire page and there's your six pages. But if Election Night is part of the job, then why the special treatment when sports doesn't receive it?

Second example. A special thing? If so, where's the pizza and extended deadlines? Part of the job? Proves that sports folks have it more harder than news. Election Night is once a year. There are 16 Redskins games.

 

This point has been addressed over and over and over.

It is wrong.

 

Baron, you do realize A1 is produced every night on deadline, right? Same with the Metro section and the wire section. What is your experience tell you about how that is done?

 

Both sides are hard to do and I'd imagine now that most outlets have fewer staff members and tighter deadlines, it will continue to get harder if you want to do quality work to your deadline. It really amounts to what you put into it. I like to use every minute I have to try to do better and provide more and I'd imagine most of us who stuck it out are the same way, regardless of whether they're news side or sports side.

There probably is a greater instance of nights and weekends for sports reporters at a lot of newspapers because that's when their events happen, whereas there are several news beats that revolve around day-time schedules — minus things like municipal councils and school boards that have evening meetings — but then, most people who either get into sports reporting or, say, crime reporting, or choose to desk sports, know going in that they're not going to be regular 9-5ers and that they'll have pressure deadlines. It's irrelevant whether that's worse or not as most of the people who do it, do it willingly.

 

A1. My experience has been that more than half the copy is in by 6 and the centerpiece is usually planned in advance. Now if breaking news changes up,things, so be it. Doesn't happen every night. If anything, it may change up one story and the rest of the page gets built with plenty of time.

Sports, meanwhile has a blank front page nearly every night until right before deadline, except on rare cases when a feature is planned in advance. Even then, there is the threat of bumping it for breaking news.

Metro section: like I said, most copy is in by 6. Say deadline is 11, that's five hours to put it out. Sports, meanwhile, has a mostly blank section, unless it's a feature page. Try waiting until 10 to get it out, and while you're at it, mind picking up,some results calls?

Wire pages: Are you fucking kidding me? Most of the news again, is in by 6. Stock markets are closed. Obama is eating dinner with the kids. By 8, you know where everything goes. Maybe you have to swap out one story. AGAIN, sports' wire news happens at night.

Like I've said, I've done news shifts. Pretty low-stress. Have to swap out one story for another whole keeping the same layout with three other stories? Big whoop. Try changing up a whole page a half hour before deadline. My pages were done by 8:30 because all the copy was in. My supervisors were stunned.