The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
There's a memorable scene in the movie "The Paper" in which a grizzled newspaper editor shares his frustration about starting his job each day from scratch. Anybody who's ever worked in a newsroom can relate. Every morning, all of those blank pages stare back at you, waiting to again be filled up with lots of juicy copy. From the outside looking in, the newspaper business must seem much more straightforward than it really is. Reporters write the stories and take the pictures, the paper is printed and delivered, and everybody goes home happy. That's an oversimplification if there ever was one. For nearly six decades, The Reminder has brought residents the stories that matter to them. But all the while, the process by which this paper travels from the concept stage into your hands has made for an interesting story in itself. The Reminder begins each morning as a blank template on a computer screen. The first step is to situate the various sized advertisements for that particular day throughout the pages. See 'Producing' P.# Con't from P.# Just how many pages the paper will have on a given day hinges on the volume of ads. Our minimum is ten pages, but an above-average number of ads means more are required to appropriately balance the ads with the copy. As that process is underway, our reporting staff is busy doing one of two things: writing articles or searching for news. News gathering can be one of the more challenging aspects of producing the paper, but that's to be expected. The Reminder is, after all, one of the few small town daily newspapers published in North America. Any newspaper based in a small town does not have, for lack of a better term, the luxury of constant crime or government controversy to fill its pages. Big cities do. Where do our story ideas come from? Obviously, many events just happen, and it's our obligation simply to be there and deduce the facts. Other times, readers phone us with news tips or ideas, for which we are very grateful. While such stories require their fair share of work, the most important step Ñ actually finding the news Ñ has already been taken care of. There are many other times when hours are spent researching and working the phones to unearth the scoops. Turns out those at HBMS aren't the only miners in town. Sometimes The Reminder itself makes the news. In recent years, we have conducted a handful of random phone surveys to gauge public opinion on matters such as the Creighton high school and a public smoking ban. These polls are an excellent way to educate readers on how we as a community feel with regard to hot-button issues. Aside from local stories, The Reminder carries numerous press releases, often from the federal and provincial governments. Such news helps make our publication more complete, giving readers a broader view of that day's news. However, not all press releases make it to print. In fact, the vast majority do not. Much of what comes our way over the fax machine or e-mail is either too complicated, unappealing, or a bit of both. A perfect example came last year in the form of a wordy press release proudly announcing that "Japanese multimedia usage illustrates how the proliferation of MMS phones with cameras will be critical to MMS going mass market." This would no doubt be fascinating to a lot of people, but we hardly took a chance when we decided that the general readership in Flin Flon wouldn't be all that concerned. Once all of the stories and photos have been completed and polished, our focus returns to that blank computer screen template. That's where the layout department places every article and picture in place. Naturally, our most important news items appear on the front page. Once the pieces of the puzzle have been put together, a rough draft of the paper is printed. Editorial staff proofread every word to ensure the copy is free of grammatical errors and awkward wording. Despite our best efforts, mistakes have been known to sneak through. That's always bothersome, but we realize we are only human. Once we're satisfied with how everything looks and reads, the pages of the master copy are given to our press operator, who spends the next few hours cloning it into 3,000 newspapers. The times at which we go to print vary from day to day. On a fast day, it's as early as 6 p.m., but on some occasions, it's past midnight before all of the stories are good to go. The latter generally occurs when we delay our press time because of a significant, late-breaking story. The night last December when the Creighton School Board voted to establish a high school program, for instance, reporting and editorial staff did not leave work until 1 a.m. There are also times when a breaking story drastically alters what we had in mind for that day. When that happens, much of the layout has to be reworked, as happened back in June 2002 when the Hemlock Drive seniors apartments started ablaze in the latter half of the afternoon. Once the copies come off the presses, the process turns to our inserting team, who turn massive paper piles into properly-ordered publications. To illustrate, drop this newspaper and watch its pages scatter onto the floor. Now reassemble it in the correct sequence. That's what our inserters down thousands of times each week. The most important step comes last when a worker delivers the papers to the businesses and our carriers walk the finished product to the doorsteps of subscribers. As soon as you pick up the paper, our job is done. All we can do is hope you enjoy the fruits of our labour. And that brings us to what keeps us working in this sometimes crazy business. Those positive comments we hear from you, our readers, is what gives us that extra little nudge on those particularly exhausting days. Thanks for your support.
