Festive Cheer

CHRISTMAS wouldn’t be the same at a newspaper without tighter-than-tight deadlines. The week before the main event we were writing for three papers instead of the usual two before the week was out. All the while planning for the fourth.
I’m sure it’s the same everywhere, but you notice as a reader that dailies come out as they always do, only they look leaner and so are faster to get through.
But the news journalists can’t really write in advance so their deadlines are still daily – albeit earlier on in the day.
For those of us on weeklies we have to ensure that we get our dates in the right order so that we’re clear about when things are happening. This isn’t always easy when you’re writing for several papers at the same time that come out on different days, about stuff before it happened, when the readers will see the paper after it has. Confused? There were moments we were too.
But it was all quite funny really.
The layout-plans for the final paper that we are to produce during this writing-with-no-sense-of real-time situation, will come out today at midday for us to fill.
And I'm just starting to get the hang of this time-warp just when it's all over.
But hey -good practice for the same again next year I guess.
Happy Winterville and a merry new year!