The problem every editor would kill to have

I'm still in the middle of putting my weekly paper to bed, but I wanted to come up for air for a second.

This week, my paper has more pages than it's ever had since I've been there. I've got 22 stories, five opinion columns, and plenty of art. I had to take away a page that wasn't filler because I had more stuff to put in. Instead of scrambling to fill holes, I've been scrambling to find room.

Days like that make me love my job.

 

Great. Hope you didn't write all the stories, though, f-town.

 

I wrote one story, one column and two crime briefs. Everything else was my full-time reporter and freelance writers.

 

Every community newspaper editor's dream: Being able to cut stuff. Have fun with it.

 

when i was at a NE weekly the last 4 years, there were many weeks in a row i had to fill 16 pages. crazy weeks they were, but satisfying, too.

 

Does sound like a great week.

 

I forgot the best part: No wire and no filler pages.

Before I became editor here, this paper ran an average of five wire stories a week. Since I've come on board, we've averaged about one every two weeks. We used to run two neighbors pages before I came on board. Now we run one, which means I have one more page to fill.

I'd better enjoy this while it lasts.

 

The weekly paper I am working at part-time had to add four pages in the middle of the day before publication. It's the last issue for election stuff, and they sold at least one full-page ad, plus all the candidate profiles.

 

I learned a lot having to fill upwards of 18 pages in a weekly a few years back.

 

While I chopped my reporter's copy down to fit my page this afternoon, I could hear his inner-self squeal with pain while I reveled in the fact that I kept out an AP story I had no interest in running.

Then there are those other kinds of days...

 

16 and ditto.

 

Same deal again this week. I had stuff I could have held if I needed to. When one story came in a lot shorter than I expected, I had one waiting in the wings that I could use.

I've had to fill 16 pages again this week. No problem. I still have one or two things I could put on if I could just ... get ... one ... more ... PAGE!

This week's count is 28 stories, two opinion columns, the rest photos. I had to kill an arts page to get one more page of news. There were some ads we had to kill because the creative wasn't in. And I still wish I had more room.