Just a Gal from Glidden: Me, procrastinate?
Me, procrastinate? Surely you jest.
I hope that you will get to know me a little better through this page and have a better understanding of why I came back to west-central Saskatchewan just as I hope to get to know all of you and invite you to share your stories.
Well, here we are. It’s Thursday evening, and once again, I have left my weekly column to the last minute. When I started this venture of mine, I set out to write my “Just a gal from Glidden” musing every week and have it done in plenty of time before the deadline.
As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Now, that may be a bit drastic. I don’t believe that when my time here on Earth is through that, I will be condemned to hell because I tend to procrastinate.
If you look up the dictionary definition, it states: Procrastination is the avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished by a certain deadline.
Now let me be clear. During my years in the newspaper and print industry, I have probably put together close to 1000 newspapers. Not once have I ever missed my deadline, at least not to the point where the paper did not get printed. I have been late on occasion, but the job always seems to get done.
The entire process is quite simple. Your West Central Voice gets taken to the Post Office first thing Monday morning after labelling each and every one of them by hand on Sunday evening. But how do we get to that stage?
In a nutshell, I gather all of the news items, advertising, photos, etc. and do my best to organize them into the 12 pages for the week. I always start by making sure all of the advertisements have been set-up and approved by the customers. Sometimes they don’t always get back to you in time, and that’s when you have to decide to either pull the ad out or let ‘er run and take your chances. Advertising is how newspapers make their money (plus subscriptions), so you don’t want to forget to put an ad in the paper, or that is revenue out the door.
I always start with my front page. That’s the first thing that the reader sees when they pick up the latest copy, so you want to make sure you have your best story or feature photo on the front. This week, it was a pretty easy decision to go with Sir Herbert Strutt’s 100th birthday celebration.
I am looking forward to his parade on Friday!
Really, I’m not crazy! Sometimes putting together a newspaper isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but you gotta laugh at yourself! Here’s a meme I created back in 2016.
Always worth the extra effort! The Gull Lake Advance’s Remembrance Day section entitled “Lest We Forget,” won first place in Newspaper Canada’s 2016 Great Idea Awards Special Section Category (Circulation 4000-24999). The judge praised it as “a powerful, well-designed section that offers a fresh take on a familiar theme.” Presenting me with the award were Roger Holmes of Star Press Inc. and Bob Cox of the Winnipeg Free Press.
Certain pages don’t change too much from week-to-week. The “opinion” page is on page 4, and the format is usually pretty straight forward. We have two columnists that submit their editorials, and all I have to do is plunk them in. I have always been a fan of the editorial cartoon. There is a service the I subscribe to, and I go onto their website and pick out the comic that I deem most suitable for the week. Letters to the Editor could also appear on this page. This week, some quips that were sent in by one of our subscribers from B.C. made the cut.
There is a lot of editorial content to go through, and some things get put aside, especially if they aren’t time-sensitive. You have to be careful that you don’t forget entirely about an interview that you did three weeks ago (sorry, Anna) and that it will still be of interest for the next edition! I receive a LOT of press releases during the week. Most don’t ever see the light of day to be truthful. I do my best to make sure that the content is unique and pertinent to our readers.
Once I double-check that all the ads are in place, I can start formatting the articles and photos. It’s almost like doing a jigsaw puzzle.
Let’s fast forward. It is now 9:24 am on Friday, and I have to have all of the newspaper pages uploaded to the printer by noon. This is the last page that needs to be approved before it will go to press. I have the other 11 pages ready to go. So the question is, did I procrastinate on getting my commentary done or did I save the best for last? I’ll let you decide, and I will end with this quote that I found by Seth Stevenson, in “Letter to a Young Procrastinator,” Slate Magazine (2008).
“For true procrastinators, nothing gets done without a deadline. As we say in journalism: The deadline is your friend. And when that deadline looms too near to procrastinate any longer, you need to take care of business. Crank it out, baby.”
Yep, let’s crank this one out. Until next week.
- KW