By Lynda Bryant Work
Newspapers have deadlines, all kinds of deadlines they have to meet in order to get a new edition to its subscribers. While they may feel inconvenient to many people – they are just a fact of life.
Each week articles must be written, photos edited, an advertising run flow sheet established to get ads on the schedule and the ads built – and that is just the beginning of a series of deadlines.
For the Castro County News, the Tuesday deadline is necessary. We need to build the ads and get them into an online folder for the paginator (not in Dimmitt) on Tuesday night for paper layout and editing. The paginator is on a deadline and doing multiple newspapers that day and must have pagination done and the editing has to be completed – and submitted to the printer on a deadline.
The printer takes the paginated pages and makes negatives and plates and then prints the newspaper and gets it bundled for delivery. his is going on for multiple newspapers at the same time. The printer has a deadline to meet to get the finished product onto a delivery truck which will make multiple stops throughout the Panhandle and South Plains region. They must have the newspapers to these locations on a deadline, including Dimmitt, and the journey begins three hours away for the Castro County News.
It is a process that requires deadlines. If a deadline is not met, there may not be a newspaper for the subscribers when it is supposed to go out.
Wednesdays are stacked up with deadlines that must be met, and they start early that day. If a deadline fails to be met – there is no newspaper on Thursday.
There are occasional glitches – bad weather and roads can delay delivery. When bad weather is in the forecast, the deadlines to get moved up ahead of the problem to get the trucks on the road early. During last winter’s freeze, the printers had no electricity.
Another unforeseen issue that can delay delivery. If the internet goes down at any of the three locations (Dimmitt, paginator’s or printer’s locations), it is a major issue. That doesn’t happen very often.
Every deadline has a purpose that fits into getting a newspaper out on time. The first deadline starts on our end and washes into multiple other deadlines and services for efficiency and production.
We do our best to accommodate late submissions, but by Wednesday, it moves past the point of adding them since the process is already underway and so many other people and factors come into play.
This is why we have that pesky Tuesday deadline!