“Josh, do you know how long it’s been since we’ve put out a 12 page paper?”
It’s mid-afternoon on Monday. Mike Armstrong and Dana Davis ask me this question when it’s well after noon and I’m thinking about content and advertising for this week’s paper. Of course, to be honest, I’m always thinking about content and advertising as it is a hazard of the job.
Throughout most of 2020, the Saratoga Sun has put out papers ranging in size from 16 pages to 36 pages. I actually had to go looking through our archive to see when we last put out a 12 page newspaper.
The answer is January 1, 2020 if you were curious.
The size of the Saratoga Sun has been a point of discussion multiple times in the office, especially within the last several weeks as we’ve averaged 24 page issues. More than once, Mike Armstrong or Amanda Shepherd stated that they remember when 12 pages was the norm and going up to 16 was the “big paper”. This year, there have been times where it seemed as if a 16 page paper would be a breeze.
I’m not saying any of this to brag, at least not about myself. Sure, my name may be up at the top under “editor/publisher” but, as I’ve said several times in the past, there is no way I could put this newspaper out without my staff. In the same token, there’s no way this paper would be as successful as it has been without my staff. I don’t know if I can ever put into words how thankful I am for them.
It makes sense, in a way, that this year would see us put out so many big papers. When the coronavirus hit in March, both Mike and I hit the pavement to talk with businesses and residents about the impacts they were seeing. With COVID, an election, one of the largest wildfires in Wyoming history and plenty of other newsworthy items we kept busy this year.
Not to mention that this year seemed to be special section after special section. We put out our annual “Hats off to Ag” just a week after the country and state began to shut down due to COVID and we pushed on through the year as we also revamped our summer guide. We put out our Carbon County Fair Scrapbook, our Back to School section, a Primary Election Section, a General Election Section, our annual “Salute to Veterans” and our annual Christmas Candle.
So far in 2020, Mike and I have written nearly 600 articles combined and that’s not counting many of the special sections. A number of those stories, at least on my part, never even appeared in print or, if they did, they were rewritten from what I had originally typed up when news was coming out over the weekend either about COVID, the RR 316 Fire or the Mullen Fire.
I have continued to be impressed with the size of the newspapers we published this year compared to the size of the staff. Not only have Mike and I been busy this year, so too have Dana Davis, our graphic designer, and Amanda Shepherd, our ad representative. I know of times when Dana has been at the office into the wee hours of the morning to make sure she gets a special section to look just right or to make sure that the cover of that section is how she wants it. I’ve seen Amanda split her time between phone calls and hitting the businesses in the area for advertising.
When it came time to close the office for the Thanksgiving holiday, every staff member seemed to finally let out a breath. What would we do with two days during the week along with a weekend off?
On Monday, both Mike and Dana told me that they were grateful for those extra days because they used it to catch up on some much needed rest. That’s something that doesn’t happen often in our field of work. While I took that time to catch up on my own rest, I also used it to spend some much needed time with my family.
Often, I’m up around 6:30 a.m. and out the door before 7:30 a.m., just after my wife, Telitha, takes our son, Jareth, to catch the bus. On Mondays, I’m usually not home until well after 10 p.m. and Jareth is fast asleep and I’m not sure if he even hears me whisper “good night” as I prepare to spend at least another hour or two working on articles.
I think it’s important that my staff was able to take a much needed breath and a much needed break as they come so few and far between in this day and age. Of course, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t also spend time during the Thanksgiving weekend worrying about if there was enough content or if there was enough advertising to fill our original page count. As I said before, it’s a hazard of the job.
Which brings me back to the question, “Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve put out a 12 page paper?”
Yes, 11 months.
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