I will be the first to admit that our election coverage was a little confusing to print readers. As I previously reported, we pushed the election night press start late so that we could have the first returns in the Wednesday print edition. After that, we went back to regular deadlines, which meant that Wednesday’s updated returns were too late for the Thursday paper, and so on. We published the latest results online at www.columbian.com as soon as we got them, but they went in the print edition that was mailed two days later. For example, the Wednesday update appeared in Friday’s print edition and also in the ePaper, which is a faithful digital edition of the print paper. (Updating our website doesn’t update the ePaper.)
Our strategy inadvertently confused some readers. They went to ePaper instead of columbian.com in search of the latest results and were disappointed.
Going forward, we’ll try to identify stories we know we will update online before the paper arrives in the mail and add a little box telling readers to go to columbian.com for the latest.
Now let’s talk about the next thing that may confuse print and ePaper readers — our holiday print editions. When we made the switch to all-mail delivery earlier this year, we didn’t fully think about postal holidays and what that would do to the contents of holiday papers.
We’d rather get those holiday papers to you a day early than a day late. So, for example, next Wednesday, print subscribers should receive both the Wednesday and the Thursday papers in the mail.
But we can’t produce and print two papers at the same time. So we’ll actually do the Thursday paper before the Wednesday paper. We’ll fill the Thanksgiving issue with feature stories, a gigantic holiday save-the-date calendar, plus the regular daily features such as comics, puzzles and advice columns. There will be an editorial page, too. But there won’t be much, if any, hard news. Nor will there be a weather page, since it will have to go to print before the Wednesday paper.
We’ll employ the same strategy for our Christmas and New Year’s Day papers, which also are postal holidays.
We’re already talking about next year and whether it makes sense to publish print papers on postal holidays. A lot of newspapers aren’t doing that anymore, because it’s confusing and not a great use of resources.
None of this affects columbian.com, which we’ll update before the holiday, on the holiday, and after the holiday. As per usual we’ll have a skeleton crew work on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day so that we can offer a regular newspaper, complete with the weather page, on the day after.
Some personal news
I’m looking forward to the new year in a special way. I’m going to try semi-retirement!
Will Campbell, who with his older brother, Ben, owns The Columbian, is going to take over as editor beginning Jan. 25. I couldn’t be happier for Will — or for me.
Ever since I took this job after Lou Brancaccio retired in 2017, we’ve been planning for the day Will would take over. It’s exciting to finally put a date on the final chapter of the transition.
Will has been leading a bunch of important initiatives for The Columbian, including our Community Funded Journalism program, and he plans to continue to lead those. So I’ll be staying on at The Columbian part time, at least for a while, doing a lot of the routine stuff I currently do. That includes being a member of the Editorial Board, helping with day-to-day editing and writing a column. (I plan to change the column’s focus to make it more newsy and less about the news business.) Of course, I will also serve as a resource to Will and anyone else who will listen to me.
Yes, I am looking forward to the new year. But first, we’ll need to get through those holiday editions.
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