From the Newsroom: Some updates for our readers

This is the second year in a row we’ve been able to extend a permanent job to our Snowden intern. Chrissy Booker, our 2023 intern, covers health and social services for us. The Snowden program is run by the University of Oregon and places juniors and seniors from Oregon colleges and universities into newsrooms around the region for the summer. Thank you to our Community Funded Journalism program donors who made our participation possible.

Workflow improves

Three weeks ago, I shared how we were changing internal deadlines and work flow in the newsroom, and how it was basically kicking our butts. I am glad to say that things have smoothed out considerably since the first week. Everyone is getting their lunch break, we’ve found new meeting times that work, and Local News Editor Jessica Prokop came up with a good way to track stories and their status.

There were several reasons we did this, but to me, the most important benefit is that we are offering more local news online faster and at times when readers are most engaged with our website. We used to post a lot of stories at 6 a.m. so as not to “scoop” our print edition, a practice that seems very outdated in our increasingly online world.

Postal delivery

I’ve seen a couple of stories in the news lately about changes the U.S. Postal Service wants to make to delivery of first-class mail. Readers saw these stories too, which prompted an inquiry into how and if these changes would affect delivery of The Columbian’s print edition.

Circulation Director Rachel Rose was quick to respond. It turns out newspapers are not considered first-class mail. Instead, she said, The Columbian has a special “exceptional dispatch” permit that puts us in a different category, allowing priority mailing for newspapers and periodicals.

Try our sports podcast

With summer over and school back in session, our sports staff is working hard covering all kinds of high school sports. Their annual football preview edition appeared Aug. 31. Now, they’re out in the field every day, talking to athletes and coaches. If you follow high school football, be sure to look at our Saturday ePaper, which has an extra page of stories not found in the print edition.

Our sports podcast is back, too, with new episodes released every Thursday. It’s our third season, and it keeps getting better. Thanks to Pacific Financial Group for allowing us to use their studio again this year.