My Sunday newspaper column
Just before 6 o'clock Monday evening, a truck slammed into a power pole and knocked out the power to much of downtown Greensboro, including the News & Record.
But unlike many of the businesses downtown, which were at the end of their work day, we were just gearing up.
Six p.m. is primetime. Reporters are finishing stories. Editors are reading them, and copy editors and designers have just arrived to organize, edit and design the next day's paper.
When the lights went out we were dead in the water.
We publish three editions every night with staggered deadlines. If we miss one, the whole assembly line backs up. In the end, you would get your newspaper late. Not good.
"We were mindful of our readers' need to get their papers on time and also of our commitment to put out a quality paper," News Editor Teresa Prout said later. And those commitments guided our actions Monday night.
This is what happened:
Emergency lights came on immediately. A few computers remained on, powered by a backup system, but they were not enough to make a difference for our operation. And that power source failed an hour later.
The first call went to Duke Power, which told us to aim for restoration at 9 p.m. Our deadline to start the press was 12:20 a.m. That would give us about three and a half hours to complete work normally done in eight. Stories edited. Headlines written. The jigsaw puzzle of stories, photos and advertising all fitting together on a newspaper page.
I loosened my tie.
Reporters left to write on home computers and e-mail their stories to their editors at their homes. Staff writer Don Patterson, who was working on a front page story about Kayser-Roth, went to the Central Library to finish his.
In an uncanny stroke of fortune, the outage occurred on the one day of the year in which there was hardly any late sports news. Major League Baseball was on its All-Star break. The Hoppers played a rare Monday day game, and it was over, as was that day's Tour de France. There were also no night government meetings of note scheduled.
Prout, production director Jim Schrum, circulation director David Reno, computer gurus Tom Corrigan and Bob Pettit, and I met in the hall -- no light in any of the meeting rooms -- to decide how we'd actually get the paper out of our door to your door.
We didn't want to merge the three editions into one. Greensboro, High Point and Rockingham readers have come to expect their own sections. But we quickly realized that we only had time to produce one version. All the ads and news from the three editions needed to be combined.
Then we learned that getting the power back on only got us halfway there. Our computers would work but our publishing system, with its complex, extensive operations, needed another hour to come back up. I started sweating, and it wasn't because the air conditioning didn't work.
"Imagine how you feel when your computer crashes at work and you have to wait for a fix, then multiply that by 25 people. That was our night," copy editor Jay Reddick said later.
Everyone took a long dinner break.
Duke Power's estimate was accurate; power came back on near 9 p.m. As we waited for the computer system to power up, editors became inventive. Kenwyn Caranna, who was overseeing our national and world report, monitored the Associated Press Web site, copying and pasting text into Word documents, cutting them to "guesstimated" lengths to fit onto newspaper pages. Once the system was back on, she could then copy and paste the stories into our publishing system and format the text to fit our style.
Pat Paris, who normally uses a computer to design ads on our pages, used pencil and paper to move the ads around so that when the computers came back, she’d have a head start.
Awkward but every little bit saved time.
As soon as the publishing system came up around 10 p.m., the place got quiet as everyone moved with a speed and decisiveness that made things happen. (For the record, after the major decisions were made, I asked what I could do to help, and everyone looked at me as if I had just offered to perform brain surgery. So I got out of the way and went home at 10:30 p.m.)
Everything actually went pretty smoothly for the next two-and-a-half hours, considering.
"It's about getting the paper out ASAP, but it's also about not just running any old stuff," copy editor Holly Lux said. "It's still checking behind each other and helping out wherever's needed, even more than usual. It feels good to get a newspaper out in about two-and-a-half hours and still be able to be proud of the paper that was produced."
We were finished with the last page by 12:25 a.m. Virtually all of our subscribers got their papers on time.
I don't write about this to suggest that the staff worked heroically. Police officers and fire fighters are heroic, not us. But it is a small insight into the dedication to put together a newspaper under dire circumstances, a newspaper you've come to expect to be in your hands first thing in the morning.
"I don't think it ever really occurred to anyone that we wouldn't put the paper out," Teresa Prout said. "That was NOT an option. I often think that putting the newspaper out is a nightly miracle -- on Monday night, it truly was."
Comments (5)
To report abuse of the comment feature on this site, please use the feedback form at the bottom of any page.
Disingenuous: Pretending to be unaware…
For the 3rd morning in a row a large group of dedicated men and women pulled into the Washington Street lot of the News & Record at 3:30 AM, only to discover the papers would be over an hour late. Many carriers curl up in their car to catch up on a little sleep, a difficult task with the busy train traffic and circulation trucks roaring by. Unfortunately for the carriers, the delays happen several times per month with no discernable pattern of when they may occur. Despite the News & Record’s lack of respect for the carrier’s time, most readers will remain oblivious to such delays due to the diligence of their carrier.
The circulation supervisory staff is appropriately apologetic and embarrassed. They are dedicated to serving the reader with the best possible delivery experience. Every morning they remain with us to encourage, train and assist us in any way they can.
The News & Record asks its carriers to finish their routes by 5:30am Monday-Friday and 6:30am on weekends. It requires papers be delivered in plastic bags, regardless of the weather forecast. Carriers must purchase the plastic bags used to assure the paper is protected from moisture. Each carrier folds and bags every paper individually. Recently, the cost of bags went up because they are a petroleum based product. (However, nothing has been offered to help carriers cope with the spiraling cost of gasoline.)
If the carrier makes a mistake and misses a delivery, or if the paper is stolen, the News & Record reserves the right to bill the carrier $5.00 for each miss. The supervisors are seasoned professionals who are careful to be as fair to the carrier as they can be. They seem to be caught between the manufacturing processes they have no control over and the senior management’s demands for seamless customer service.
So when you read the editor’s column about his dedicated staff, remember the lack of regard his company affords it carriers.
Posted on July 17, 2005 2:20 PM
Now there's balls. Have a gripe with your employer? Attack them online.
Are the delays really this frequent?
Posted on July 18, 2005 12:50 AM
I am afraid so. This morning they were 30 minutes late. Prior to this 4 day late stretch, they were on time for 2 straight weeks. More experienced carriers tell me it has been this way for yhe last few years.
I write because I beleive Mr. Robinson to be inherantly fair. The carriers deserve his respect and attention as much as anyone. Most of us work 2 jobs and need the income to make ends meet. The lack of consideration for a contractor's time is disrespectful.
Posted on July 18, 2005 6:28 AM
The way the newspaper is organized, my staff has the responsibility to provide the words that will be transferred into ink on paper. Once the digital pages leave my shop, the process is far from finished, although the news department's role in it is. The computer images still need to be burned onto plates, run through the press, divided into different circulation zones, advertising circulars inserted, loaded onto the correct trucks and taken to the sites where carriers pick them up.
You're correct, of course, about us being late. But it has nothing to do with respect for our carriers, a group that I appreciate and have written about. We've had some problems with the press that we're working to get behind us.
Posted on July 18, 2005 9:14 AM
Being late is disrespectful to carriers. On one hand you insist on deliveries being made on time- and threaten to fine carriers who are late. Yet you offer nothing in compensation for being late yourself. Neither do you apologize for being late.
It seems you have little regard for circulation.
Posted on July 20, 2005 8:09 AM