A few years back, the North Shore News published a special feature celebrating 50 years in the newspaper business. It nearly killed me.
To take you behind the scenes of the news game for a minute, special features like that typically start out at a modest size but they have the potential to grow based on the support from advertisers. The more ads that are sold, the bigger the section becomes.
This has its pros and cons for the editorial team.
Pro: “Yay, we sold more ads and made more money, we can buy some more coal for the stove to keep our ink-stained hands warm!”
Con: “Now we have to fill all those extra pages with thoughtful and heartwarming content. Can anyone think of a thoughtful and heartwarming way to describe a panic attack?”
This is what happened with the anniversary edition. Over the course of a few weeks the support from advertisers was so overwhelming that the section grew from a pamphlet to a phonebook. I was in charge of co-ordinating the editorial content for the section, and one of my colleagues from the sales team would gleefully come by my desk every few days to tell me that the section was growing again.
“20 pages,” she said, as I smiled and nodded back.
“36 pages,” she said, as I contemplated pulling a Homer Simpson and just filling a few pages with “Screw Flanders” written over and over again.
“48 pages,” she said, as I reached for a shot of whiskey to steady my nerves.
“56 pages,” she said, as I reached for a shot of cyanide to steady my nerves.
When the final sales deadline passed, we had our tally: 72 pages.
It was no longer a feature so much as a Russian novel. “I need 40,000 words on newspaper delivery kids, guard dogs and existential dread. Can someone get Dostoevsky on the phone?”
The fascinating thing, though, was that as we went about collecting stories for the section, we found we didn’t need any filler at all. We had more than enough to fill those pages.
Peter Speck told the fascinating tale of how he went from being a failed radiator mechanic to the founder of the North Shore News. We shared the story of how our office burned down in 2005, before my time at the News, and yet still managed to get the paper on doorsteps on time.
We ran a lovely feature on Mike Wakefield, Cindy Goodman and Paul McGrath, three fabulous photographers who combined for more than 100 years of shooting anyone and everyone on the North Shore. We shared the gleeful pride in some of our favourite April Fools articles, and a certain government cabinet minister whose angry phone call confirmed we’d gotten one just right.
When it was all said and done, 72 pages breezed by, even if putting it all together still felt like going to work in a tornado.
But I loved it. It remains one of my favourite things we’ve done at the paper. I loved it because I got to learn a lot of the paper’s history right along with the readers.
I thought of that anniversary edition a few weeks ago when I was officially named the editor of the North Shore News. It got me thinking of those first 50 years of the paper, of all who those folks came before to get us to that point. During my time here, I’ve worked with many talented colleagues, past and present, who have taught me what is important at the North Shore News: keeping our readers loyal by being loyal to our readers.
The news business isn’t the same as it was when the paper started in 1969 or when I joined some 15-odd years ago. Heck, the news business isn’t the same as it was a couple of weeks ago: Try going back to 1969 and telling Peter Speck that one day Meta and Google would start blocking our content, playing media outlets like pawns in some tech world battle against the government. It wouldn’t have made much sense then (and still doesn’t now).
But go back and tell him the paper is still going strong, and that would be welcome news indeed.
It’s an honour and a privilege to continue to serve this community, keeping you informed and entertained as we share the stories of this great place. I know we’ve got great readers – yes, that’s you – because we hear from you all the time when we mess up and when we nail it.
I’m thrilled to be in this position, working with a great team, and we’ve got a lot of stories left to tell. I can’t wait to see what they’ll do for the 100th anniversary.
Andy Prest is the editor of the North Shore News. His lifestyle/humour column runs biweekly.
