Production Day, Part 2: When I came to the office this morning, it was packed. Our part-time copyeditor, Cole, was tackling a stack of papers at his desk; the arts editor, Brian, was working on formatting for one of his articles; college intern Thomas was writing another new story; EIC Jeff was typing furiously at the computer in his office. Thomasi got here a few minutes after me, and we worked to compile charts, write the opening for our crime feature, and string quotes together into something comprehensive. I also reached out to the Durham Police again; I’m getting, I think, pretty good at writing professional-sounding emails.
We also referenced one of Thomasi’s old articles describing how Durham officials called publicly for “common-sense gun laws” back in January. It’s interesting seeing how national hot-button issues, and their controversies, translate to local politics and news.
In addition to that story, I continued working on my participatory budgeting article, communicating with the project’s budget coordinators and reaching out to a city council member who spearheaded the initiative.
Once we hit 2:00 deadline, the newsroom started to quiet down. I spent most of the late afternoon looking through a report from the DPD, meeting with Ms. Eason when she stopped by, and chatting with the two college interns, Thomas and Sophia, as they leafed through old classified ads.
The newest edition of INDY Week is out tomorrow, so go pick up a copy if you’re out in Durham (or check out the website at indyweek.com)!
For reference, here’s a few pictures of last week’s edition. It’s amazing to see how much a small team of people can put together in just a week.
