Members of The Columbian's news staff wore costumes to the newsroom on Halloween.
(Shari Phiel/The Columbian)
I kept up with the headlines on election night, but there was still something satisfying about holding the Wednesday newspaper in my hands.
As I mentioned last week, we moved our press start to 11 p.m. for one night only so that we could get the first returns from all of the local races into the paper. Of course, we also included state races and an update on the presidential race, which ended up being called for Donald Trump less than an hour after we went to press. That’s what happens when you have a deadline.
Overall, I was proud of our effort. This includes work by not only our news team, photographers and copy desk but also our production team, who also had to stay late. Columbian Associate Editor Will Campbell bought 14 pizzas, but that doesn’t repay the devotion our employees have to bringing you the best local newspaper that we can possibly produce.
The late deadlines for the Wednesday edition, coupled with the regular deadlines for Thursday, meant Thursday’s print edition didn’t include the second round of Clark County ballot totals. Remember, the print newspaper and its electronic replica, known as the ePaper, are produced in the afternoon, so news that breaks after lunch is usually too late to be included. For the latest on any story, look to our website, www.columbian.com. We update our website all day long and into the evening.
Halloween costumes
I got my first full-time reporting job in 1983, but every year there are some things that are new to me. The most recent was when the reporters asked if they could wear costumes to work on Halloween.
Well, sure! In fact, most of the newsroom participated. Everyone brought a change of clothes in case they had to run out on an assignment. I rustled up some small prizes to give away and recruited judges from our circulation and accounting departments to award them. The costumes were great. (Look at this column online if you want to see a photo.)
The top winners were Henry Brannan, who dressed as a Pacific lamprey (Henry’s been writing about them); Jessica Prokop, butterfly; Brianna Murschel, vampire; Alexis Weisend, The Lorax; and Mia Ryder-Marks as soft-voiced PBS artist Bob Ross.
Becca Robbins came as Reba McEntire; Scott Hewitt, astronaut; and Sarah Wolf as Robin Hood. We had two witches — Merridee Hanson and Monika Spykerman — and a tree (Will Campbell.) Romana Wood, Amy Libby and Taylor Balkom also dressed up, and I came as Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino from “Jersey Shore.”
It was fun. I hope we do it again next year.
Photos of the year
Here’s an interesting event open to Columbian subscribers: our annual Photos of the Year event, presented by Photo Editor Amanda Cowan and photojournalist Taylor Balkom.
Each of them will show some of their favorite photos and talk about challenging and rewarding aspects of their job. Amanda is going to talk about how she covered the 3rd Congressional District race, trying to show each candidate equally despite having unequal access to them. She also will talk about the ethics of photographing homeless people, which I am really interested in learning more about.
Taylor is going to talk about the challenges of sports photography, and also how he has used his recently obtained drone pilot’s license to make some interesting photographs on what could otherwise be mundane assignments.
We’ll hold the event on a Thursday evening in December in The Columbian’s lobby. Space is very limited; if you want to attend you must be a subscriber and reserve your seat by emailing kate.sacamano@columbian.com.
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