Merry Christmas

At my old shop, which was not in an NBA market, we saved off-beat enterprise features for Thanksgiving and Christmas every year. That way the layout could be done in advance, and we'd have a solid centerpiece with a full page inside killed.

 

All fall stuff. Ran the four football features and 25-man roster in print today. Advanced it with a full-length show Friday as a cross promotion tool. Worked like a charm.

 

All-area teams are great. Depending where you are and when the season ends. If the season ends early November, that's a pretty lengthy hold. Which was why I was heavy on year-end stuff: top stories, athlete of the year, etc. It seems like everyone does them and trying to squeeze them the weekend of New Year's, on top of all the bowls, NFL, hockey and basketball got to be a hassle. So this worked perfect on both ends.

One place I went to visit relatives one year (late 90s) didn't even publish a Christmas Day edition. It was a pretty large town, state capital, major university city. But they ran a disclaimer "so our employees may celebrate the holidays with their family....". Well, I thought, nice idea, but if you are like me and hundreds of miles from home, it doesn't help much. And if family lives with you, you probably relish getting out of the house with something to do in the afternoon/evening anyway. It probably only helps if family is a 3-4 hour drive away.

But, on the other hand, how much demand is there for a paper on Christmas, anyway, unless you have heavy retail advertising for sales and such?

 

"But, on the other hand, how much demand is there for a paper on Christmas, anyway, unless you have heavy retail advertising for sales and such?"

While laying out the section Monday night, this thought consumed me — but more so today (the 26th). At least for the Christmas Day paper I had a nice local "look-back" column from a guy who's been covering the big hockey team in town for more than three decades. But my coworker tasked with filling five pages for today's edition was in a no-win situation. One local holiday tournament preview story and the rest was wire and gigantic pictures to fill space. I thought he made it work, but I can't imagine anyone was falling over themselves to read today's sports section. It was "whatever it takes to fill space" at its finest.

I'd rather, for a day or two a year, put out no paper than a terrible one.

 

I would as well. I know a lot of places have reduced printing frequency in recent years. But I never said anything publicly because when people see you are not indispensable, they quickly learn to live without you.

Same for space. I would never complain about too much space for fear we'd get cut and then wouldn't have it when we needed it.

 

We ran our All-Area football team Tuesday, so that took up a big chunk of the section. IIRC, there were only one or two other pages to fill. My boss and I came in around 11 that morning and finished at 2. Holiday deadline was something like 7:45 or 8:45.