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March 28, 2024

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From the Newsroom: Here’s how sausage is made for Columbian’s front page

By Craig Brown, Columbian Editor
Published: March 24, 2018, 6:02am

In my fantasy world, here’s how we picked the stories for Tuesday’s front page:

I keyed in a five-digit passcode, the light turned green and a heavy door slid open. The situation room was dark, save for the glow of the screens keeping us in touch with Washington, Olympia, City Hall and the courthouse. As I slid into my chair at the head of the polished mahogany table, I barked at the assembly of editors: “What’s the Times leading with? Trump? Not good enough!”

Here’s what really happened: It starts with some math: 6 + 2 = 1. As in, six local stories and two local photos makes one newspaper (and one happy editor).

OK, math was never my best subject.

The Columbian’s news covers almost always contain four stories. For A1, we want at least one of those to be local, and hope that there will be more, because local news is our specialty. But pick too many local stories for the front page, and you can’t fill the C1 cover! So our magic number is six: Two local stories for A1, and four for C1.

It would be nice if at least one story for each cover had a photograph. So the other magic number is two.

With those physical realities in mind, we started the A1 hunt at 10 a.m. with a meeting of the metro team editors and the photo editor. At this point, we were just looking at local content. Were the stories on our advance budget really going to be finished today? Are the photos shot? Are they worthy of the front page? Will they fit the news hole?

In this case, the answers were affirmative. We also previewed Thursday, consulting the advance budget compiled by Mark Bowder, who as one of our two metro team editors reviews work plans filed by reporters every Thursday.

Digesting the news

About 11:30 a.m. the Associated Press in New York moved a story digest listing the national and world stories we can expect to receive by deadline. Most days, we get a dozen stories, including a business story or two. Of course, AP covers many more stories, but we have only the bronze-level subscription — we like to save money on wire services and spend money on local news.

Around 1 p.m., AP sent digests from the Seattle and Portland bureaus with the stories from each of those two states. I read these digests right after lunch. The quantity here varies a lot day to day, but there were seven stories on Monday.

Next, I sought out the wire editor (most weekdays, this is Assistant News Editor Colleen Keller.) We compared notes. What might the lead stories be? Is there something so lengthy or important that it might crowd out the local coverage? Would any of the stories benefit from a local angle? Keller also had read the digests from our supplemental wire services and found several interesting stories not on AP’s list.

Tuesday’s front-page plan came together at 3:30 p.m. at our final news meeting. No security code. No darkened room. No mahogany table. And, frankly, I don’t know or care about The Times. We do our own thing.

It started with Bowder pitching two local stories he thought worthy of A1. Both had been on the 10 a.m. budget: An advance story about kids who are preparing to march in today’s safe schools rally, and meeting coverage of the Vancouver Salary Commission, which sets salaries for the mayor and city council. Photo Editor Amanda Cowan showed some good pictures to go with the safe schools story.

Keller brought her nominees from the wire: Gov. Jay Inslee signs several voter access bills; the soda industry is trying to ban local taxes on their products in Washington; some coastal states (Washington is not mentioned) want to thwart offshore oil drilling; a former Cambridge Analytica employee tells how the firm targeted certain Facebook users with political misinformation; and a study suggests how to avoid getting sick on your next flight.

I thought only two of these wire stories were interesting, but all nine people at the news meeting — department editors, copy editors, page designers — have a say. Sometimes we have a pointed discussion, but this was a slow news day and the solution was easy. Look at the PDF of the front page and you can see what we decided. No calculus required!

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