Crazy things you've had to do to file a story

All I remember is lots of rain and a crazy woman in a wheelchair ranting about the Flint Generals management.
I leave the floor to you sir.

 

Another one from the pre-Internet, pre-cellphone (well, widespread cellphone) days.
We were a three-man staff -- me, one other writer and the SE. Me and the other writer both went to a city 45 minutes away to cover a football game. In those days, it was easier to just hustle back to the office and write. We did it often, and there was usually plenty of time.

Except on this night. It was pouring down rain. Both our games had lightning delays, so we're already running behind. Then, on the way home, there's a bad, bad wreck on the interstate. Multiple fatalities. Blocks up the interstate for damn near two hours, and neither me nor the other writer were close enough to an exit or a turnaround point to take an alternate route.
So we wait. Deadline is 12:30. We got stuck in the traffic around 10:45.
A little past 11, I was bored and figured time was going to be tight so I wrote out my story longhand in my notebook. By 11:30 I was done and traffic still hadn't moved. I didn't have a cellphone, so I got out of the car and asked a random person a few cars up if I could use theirs. The guy let me, and I called in to the office to see what the SE wants me to do. I tell him I have my story ready if he wants to do dictation. SE says no, we've got time.
I go back to the car, wait another 30 minutes, return to the stranger with the cellphone and call the boss again. Tell him the same thing, my story's written if he wants to type it up. He says, emphatically, no, we'll wait.
Finally, around 12:45, traffic moves. I get to the office a little after 1 and the SE still hasn't either punted and run AP, gotten some basic info from me and the other writer and thrown something together, or just taken the damn dictation.
And yet, I still have to fight with him to get 10 minutes to retype the story I'd written out longhand. Our other writer ambled in a few minutes later thinking he'd be writing a second-day story for Sunday. SE tells him to get typing and, to his great credit, he banged out a story from scratch in about 10 minutes.

The whole time, I think the news editor was piecing together a story on the fatal wreck since sports was running so late. She was also giving the SE the hairy eyeball and asking him what the hell he was doing. It still mystifies me and that other writer why he waited, when both of us had checked in to explain the situation and could've given him at least enough info to pump out a couple of 10-inch stories and get out on time.

 

Because we all know doodah has never missed a deadline, had his wifi crash or had a game go overtime or extra innings on his watch ...

 

I have more respect for my elders after reading this thread. My stories pale in comparison.

I was once doing a basketball doubleheader for a small radio station and the only instruction the station manager gives is "read the spots whenever you can."

I had done some work for him before, so he just tells me he knows I have the spots somewhere (I didn't), but if I don't they're in with the mixer, headset and other broadcast hardware.

Of course, I'm running very late on game day, and I'm driving to the gym. I take a look in the bag, no spots. I call the manager's cell phone, his office, his house. No answer. So, I call my dad and ask him if he's at the computer. Luckily he was, so I made him listen to an archived game on the site and repeat the spots back to me so I could transcribe them. Got on the air as the tip was tossed up, ready to read the spots - though I'm guessing it wasn't as verbatim as it would've been otherwise.

My worst print experience is that I once had to retype 1,000 from my laptop to my phone to send via 3G because the Internet was out. Tedious, but not bad.

 

great stories....this has been a fun thread. Evidently be prepared for doom and gloom when covering either football or track

And yes, isn't it nice to have reliable equipment and wi-fi spots so available. I still remember 7-8 years ago, traveling 200 miles away for a playoff football game and having the convenience of finding a nearby pub/restaurant after the game where I ordered dinner, popped out my laptop and fired off my story just before the food arrived. Much better than the pre wi-fi panicked run-arounds.

 

This is not so much one I was involved in, but one I witnessed.

I was on the desk on a Friday night about 4, 5 years ago now. One of our younger writers was covering a distant high school football road game up in the Georgia mountains. The writer had set up with the home team's coaches to file from their fieldhouse post-game. The writer for whatever reason couldn't get a connection, or couldn't get through the school's firewalls, so he had to call our assistant SE from the coaches' office to dictate.

Assistant SE: "That fuckin' one-horse fuckin' town"

Few seconds pause

Assistant SE: "You're not on speaker phone, are you?" (he wasn't)

We all broke down in laughter.

 

Not necessarily on deadline but it had the potential as all my bad luck happened before the game started.

Earlier in the day my car didn't start up while I was doing a few errands...After an hour it finally started up and went home for a few hours.

As I was packing up to go to the game I was covering for two newspapers, I unplugged my computer power source before fully shutting down and looked at the screen and had the dreaded "Windows update do not unplug." I said whatever and packed my laptop anyways.

I leave plenty of time to the arena which was 45 minutes away from home to scout out potential places to file from if I got the boot from the arena. Starbucks, McD's, Dunkin' Donuts, Wendy's all in a half a mile radius of the rink closed around the time the game would end.

So I go to the rink, get the password to the wifi and see when they were going to boot my ass. They said 11:30 p.m. and the deadline was at 11 for one of the papers I was filing for (the other paper I had no immediate deadline), so we are all good there.

I set up in the warming room I guess you can call it because there's no press box. Open my computer back up and it wouldn't start. This when I thought I was in trouble because this was the first game I was covering with a hard deadline (Luckily it was girls hockey so it was a quick game). I tried for ten minutes and nothing was working so I packed up my stuff drove to the Staples across the street 30 minutes before game time to see if they could do anything about my computer. I start my computer up for them it started to work so I bolted back to the arena got my original spot back and took a deep breath and finally was able too relax, to only find out the bluetooth keyboard I picked up during my errands during the day stopped working. At that point, it was the least of my worries and knew I could get by on my semi-functional keyboard that's on my laptop.

I was able to file 15 minutes before 11 to the first newspaper, had the copy editor panicking, but that's because I think he was upset that I didn't give him his coffee the night before. 20 minutes later filed for the second newspaper and as I was walking out of the arena, they just shut off the light in the building.

 

Shut the hell up. I think a lot of deadlines. I also think a lot of getting finished and not having a half-ass product. But you know what, I'm not the one who decided that I could design, write, edit, take photos, edit photos in 90 goddamn minutes after a basketball doubleheader in Southeast Kansas on a Tuesday night by myself. No one will even stick around to copy edit but the managing editor drops her pages into my lap while I'm trying to get done with mine. So not only am I doing all my own work, I have to do a part of her job. They can either wait 10 minutes or print a blank page.

And if you think that's not too tough, I can tell you about the 18 months I had to be the entire sports staff and the interim managing editor. 11 p.m. deadline for all that shit, which I probably met less than a third of the time, less than that during the school months. Never heard a word. You know why? Because I would have went off. And there was one occasion during that time that I walked out of a meeting after giving two weeks notice. When you're the only news-side person in the building who can do layout, they tend to listen to your concerns.

So you just go ahead and keep on being snide about our stories about the difficulty of making deadline, Mr. Perfect. Because goofy shit never happens to you.

 

Overall, I've been lucky as I usually leave early enough to formulate a plan for the night.

I covered a 1 p.m. high school football game this fall with no strict deadline, then hauled ass over an hour away to string a 7 p.m. college game. I get to the stadium to send a test email and then promptly get kicked off the wireless. (and there's no hardline).

After bugging the hell out of a couple university staff, the SID tells me that a lot of people hop on the network with their tablets, smartphones, etc., and that it should clear up as the game went on. I've gotta hit send as soon as the clock hits zero, so I'm sweating it out a bit. Not to mention this paper's email system can be cranky at times.

Fortunately it did clear out, just as he said. Minor compared to some stories here, but still, left me a bit uneasy for two quarters.

 

I think it's safe to say that most people who have started their careers in the last decade can't even comprehend using a Trash-80, having to file from a convenience store, or not being able to call the desk because there are no phones available or even having to stand in line to file...

 

And they only have to walk uphill one way!

 

Well, yeah ... and get the hell of my lawn while you're at it.