Take-out pizza is an election night essential in newsrooms. (Sue Selasky/Detroit Free Press/TNS )
Next week is going to be an exciting week in The Columbian’s newsroom. And I’m not talking about the Clark County Fair, although that is always good for a story. I’m talking about Tuesday’s primary election.
We met this week to talk about how we plan to handle election night. First of all, our partners in the production departments were kind enough to extend our print deadline late, so Wednesday’s newspaper can report the outcome of the almost three dozen races and ballot measures. But to meet that 11 p.m. late press start, we’ll need to hurry.
Here’s our plan: When the first results are received, our managing editor for content, Erin Middlewood, will write and post an online story that talks about who is leading in the major races. It will likely start with the interesting 3rd Congressional District matchup featuring incumbent Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Trump-endorsed repeat challenger Joe Kent, traditional Republican Leslie Lewallen and independent John Saulie-Rohman. (Remember, in all these races the top two vote-getters advance to the November general election, regardless of party.) We’ll hope to have that story posted by 8:30 or 8:35 p.m.
Meanwhile, six reporters will fan out and start making calls to sources for their reactions and the “What’s next?” angle. We call this a “swarm,” where we assemble a large team of reporters to get multiple angles in a hurry. Rather than one big story, like Erin is writing, they will write seven smaller stories. That will make it easier for readers to find coverage of the races they are most interested in.
Some legislative races on the ballot only have two candidates, both of whom advance to November. We won’t write stories about those. But we’ll include them in our large list of election results, which we call a rail, so voters can see how well their candidates did.
It will be important for reporters to hit their deadlines, which start about 9 p.m. and are staggered until 10:15 p.m., to allow Erin and Web Editor Amy Libby to edit the stories and move them to the copy desk, where they’ll be edited again, posted to the web, and placed on the page for the print edition and our ePaper.
Our coverage continues after election night, of course. It’s likely a second set of results will be released Wednesday evening. We’ll be watching for them and post them online quickly. And we’ll keep updating you with results as long as races are too close to call or until the election results are certified Aug. 20.
You may have noticed I didn’t mention photography as a part of our election night plan. Before the pandemic, candidates, their campaign managers, journalists and local politics junkies used to gather together to wait for the election results to be announced. But this doesn’t happen anymore. Some candidates have an election night party, but we’re loathe to send a photographer to one candidate’s party when two candidates will advance.
Choosing the pizza
The thorniest issue was election night pizza. We have $90 in the budget, but what kinds, and where to get it? When I was metro editor, my boss Lou Brancaccio had very strong ideas about the pizza. Some local pies offended his Italian roots. Other times, we had to accommodate staffers who were vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free.
A quick show of hands at this week’s meeting showed this crew doesn’t have any dietary restrictions. But that still left the age-old question about where to obtain the pizza. I’m working a day shift Tuesday, and thus had no opinion. Luckily, Associate Editor Will Campbell stepped up and agreed to take care of it. Like Lou, Will has Italian roots and knows his way around a good pizza, so I am sure the staff will be well fed Tuesday night.
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