"All I know is what I see in the papers."
- Will Rogers
People - students, administrators, presidential cabinet secretaries, rodeo clowns - constantly stop me on the street to ask questions. The inquires range from, "Can you point me to the nearest bathroom?" "Why are you eating what fell on the floor?" "Stop staring at my girlfriend's chest!" and "Hey, get the hell out of my car!"
If there's one thing I'm asked the most, it is, "How do you and your colleagues manage to put out such a high quality newspaper three times a week, have time to finish your class work and still look so damn sexy?" The rodeo clowns frequently ask this.
"Muh," I respond, because I'm so damn tired from writing, editing, reading, studying, going to my other job, then more writing and trying to find some time to relax. For example, this morning my fatigue caused me to misuse my hair gel and toothpaste. My hair smells minty fresh and my teeth can be styled in a number of fashionable positions.
The question is a good one. Before I joined this staff, when the football team was respectable and you could only register for classes by phone, I assumed the newspaper fairy - a subsidiary of AOL/Time Warner - waived a magic wand and presto!
God, was I wrong.
For us the paper doesn't come out Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays because by then it's done, we're already thinking about the next issue. We think in terms of Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday production days and/or nights because that's when we work and the exquisite pain begins.
The following is representative of a typical production day/night for the brave men and women of the good ship Spectrum.
9:00 a.m. - The members of the Spectrum's professional staff - Business Manager Debbie Smith, Administrative Assistant Helene Polley and Advertising Designer Colleen Coster - arrive to do a day's work for a day's pay. We don't make it easy for them. Polley and Coster spend 20 minutes cleaning up our discarded cups, candy bar wrappers and empty Zoloft containers from their desks. The newsroom proper is empty at this time in the day.
9:30 a.m. - The newsroom is still empty.
9:31 - 10:30 a.m. - The newsroom makes the Sahara look like a rush hour traffic jam on the Los Angeles Freeway.
10:31 - 11:30 a.m. - Inevitable as the tides, the Spectrum staff begins to slowly roll in. Shaking off their hangovers and/or crushing depression (hence the Zoloft), the best and brightest UB has to offer are ready to bring game and bang out another badass issue. I have not arrived yet.
11:32 a.m. - Like the Wicked Witch of the West descending on the good people of Oz, I arrive. Immediately everyone needs to work harder to cover for my mistakes.
11:50 a.m. - Managing Editor Elizabeth Fox-Solomon asks me if we have any good issues to editorialize about for tomorrow's issue. I inform her in measured, reasonable tones, I haven't looked yet. She expresses her desire for me to do so, also in measured, reasonable tones. Then she hits me.
12:03 p.m. - Feature Editor Kevin Purdy expresses hope that all his stories are in on time and in reasonable publishing condition.
12:05 p.m. - After checking his e-mail, his hopes are cruelly dashed.
12:30 p.m. - Flanked by half a dozen Greek Adonis retainers, Editor in Chief Emily Dalton Smith enters the newsroom.
12:45 p.m. - The editors cram into our conference room like clowns climbing into the little car. We debate what issues to write editorials about. Sports Editor Michael Scott, realizing the discussion will not involve pitch counts or play actions passes, decides not to join.
12:52 p.m. - My suggestion that I write an editorial proclaiming "The Empire Strikes Back" as the greatest work in the history of mankind is met with laughter, paper throwing and taunts of "Yoda's just a puppet." I begin to sob uncontrollably.
1:36 p.m. - Like a prize fighter who went gone twelve rounds with a grizzly bear, we emerge with the barest outline of a consensus. Contributing Editor Stefanie Alaimo consoles me with, "Yoda could be a real person, that's right. No, you're not crazy."
2:10 p.m. - We all laugh when Campus News Editor Sara Paulson asks Photo Editor Cliff Borress to follow President Greiner to Albany to take a picture for tomorrow's issue. Borress doesn't think that's very funny, responding with a poorly aimed volley of gunfire.
2:31 p.m. - Realizing he's run out of ink for his drawings and low on cash, Editorial Cartoonist John Gaeddert searches in vain for a squid to squeeze.
2:54 p.m. - The stuffed animals thoughtfully purchased for the editors by Asst. Photo Editor Joanne Crofts are thrown around the newsroom like Roger Clemens' fastballs. Editorial Editor Dylan Hall and Sports Editor Matt Albert are hit in the crossfire and taken to a local hospital with eye injuries.
3:10 p.m. - Scott and I taunt Asst. Feature Editor Jamie Lynn Perna for being a Yankee fan. Secretly, though, we are jealous.
3:33 p.m. - Paulson swears eternal vengeance on a writer.
4:11 p.m. - For no reason I call Fox-Solomon a "Liberal commie shrew."
4:12 p.m. - She retorts with "Oppressive fascist ogre."
5:03 p.m. - Purdy swears eternal vengeance on a writer.
6:34 p.m. - Damage done, I go home.
7:39 p.m. - After two hours of staring at indecipherable text, Copy Editor Phil Manijak's head explodes. Editorial Editor Gene Park observes with amusement.
8:00 p.m. - 1or 2 a.m. - The finishing touches are put on the paper. Smith, Fox-Solomon and Manijak drive it down to the presses. Mission complete.
Then we come back two days later and repeat the same process for months at a time. Some of us have been doing this for more than a year, a testimony to our insanity.
Next time you feel like complaining about a mistake in the paper, please have some sympathy - editors are people too. But just barely.
