The Printer’s Devil

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It’s the first of the year and it’s Progress time.

Most small-town editors and readers know that time — and as far as editors and reporters are concerned, not too fondly.

For those of you who don’t know; and I suspect there aren’t many, Progress — it’s called different things at different papers — is an attempt to jack up advertising at the leanest advertising time of the year by printing a fat edition of “happy talk” copy. Progress editions are always so mind-numbingly the same — asking local businesses how wonderful last year was and how even more wonderful this year will be, plus some lengthy puff-pieces and flattering photos about government or business leaders.

It’s the busiest time of the year for reporters, who have to crank out tons of blather in a relatively short time, much of it virtually identical from story to story and from year to year. It’s the busiest time of the year for you the editor, who has to read and lay out the tons of blather. And because it’s the same, your eyes will glaze over. What’s more, because the advertising staff is frantically trying to meet unrealistic sales goals, you won’t have any idea how many pages you have to deal with until the last minute. You haven’t lived until you start laying out a Progress edition until you find out suddenly there are another eight pages to fill and you’ve got a long night to do it.

Speaking from hard experience, there’s an irresistible temptation to change things when it comes to Progress.

Resist the temptation.

If it keeps the publisher and advertising staff happy, live with it. Advertisers will be happy. Businesses know they’re buying what amounts to free good publicity for themselves. And although the writing is almost always pretty crappy and pointless, readers actually seem to enjoy Progress editions. After a year of death, disaster and grim news, they enjoy reading that Things Are Actually Going Right for once. (However, just once. Happy “news” wears thin pretty fast although there are those newspapers shameless, and readerless, enough to try.)

Deal with Progress with gallows humor and take the attitude that the news staff is stuck in the lifeboat together. Regard it as one of those Shackleton Antarctic expeditions, ordeals in which build esprit-de-corps in the newsroom.

I speak from the perspective of someone who hasn’t always resisted the temptation to change things.

One idea I tried, and which was a spectacular success as far as the news staff and readers were concerned, was to set one day in January and then have as many people in the community keep a diary of what they did that day or what they were thinking that day. Then I smoothly stitched together the diaries into one lengthy story of that day, from dramatic to mundane. Those were good Progress editions. They’ll be revered by local historians a hundred years from now.

The idea was to get as many people as possible to keep diaries, even if a few words, so I’d have enough to fill all the pages. It was nerve-racking. I always worried that not enough people would do diaries so I hedged by bets and also had my reporters keep detailed notes of what went on that day, riding the police scanner or frequenting sites where a lot of people congregated and do short interviews of what some of them were doing. Since we had a photographer on staff, the photographer would be out all day, taking photos of every flower, windmill or activity. (I figured that if the need was desperate, the photos would eat up a lot of space.) However, for the three times I did it at various newspapers, there was never a problem with having enough to fill the paper.

It was also nerve-wracking for the publishers, who could never grasp the concept and would always ask about the stories on how local businesses had a wonderful last year and were going to have an even more wonderful year.

Readers loved it. But the concept never worked because advertising sales staff (and advertisers) could never grasp it either and those Progress editions were pretty thin in terms of advertising. The best of the three occurred when I had a really nervous publisher and hedged my bets one year by including smaller everything-is-wonderful business stories, which the publisher and ad staff comprehended.

But I figured never again. Regretfully, I must recommend that you don’t experiment with Progress. Do the same old, same old. Take your lumps.

A few other Progressive comments:

Start early. Hand out assignments at least a month or two early. Reporters still have to cover their beats, and big news and other special sections such as soil conservation stories often tend to happen while you’re hip-deep in Progress and although you lose flexibility to react to news because of Progress you still need a bit of slack. Set the deadlines for stories early. And bird-dog the deadlines. Constantly ask what the reporters have done. Don’t wait for them to tell you.

Odds are you have a stupid but busy publisher. Keep them busy by “picking the theme” of the Progress Edition. A publisher can spend a surprising amount of time trying to find the right slogan and look for Progress instead of getting in your way — time well-spent.

If you get winter-break college interns, put them to work doing as much of the scut work for Progress, doing as many of the “everything is wonderful” business review stories. They get a list of the wonderful things that happened and will happen and a few quotes from the owner or general manager, and voila, they’ve done a Progress story. Have the regular news staff do the lengthier puff-piece features.

If you have a photographer, be prepared to hear tons of carping about the drudgery of photographing progress stuff. You may have to make reporters take cameras and take a few generally insipid photos themselves when they go out to do stories.

Some papers prefer doing the Progress Edition in one big edition. Others stretch them out over three or four weeks. I don’t know if there’s a lot of difference between the two. Personally, I prefer stretching them out. Several semi-packed editions rather than a whole month of paltry papers and one biggie looks better. It’s also less stressful on the mailroom and carriers.

Always spring for a big post-Progress party out of the newsroom budget a week or two after the edition runs. Lots of pizza or buffet meals and a well-stocked bar.