Space is frontier Gazette is trying to conquer

“Space: the final frontier.”


Capt. James T. Kirk said these words at the beginning of each episode of the classic “Star Trek” series. On many Wednesdays, as The Gazette staff is putting together the week’s paper, I often feel like uttering them, too.

While Kirk said them in reference to outer space, a frontier mankind has really only dabbled in when our explorations of it are compared to the vast amount of space actually out there, my reference of it is to the space in the paper I’m given for the week’s news content.

Some people may be surprised to learn the size of our paper is not determined by the amount of news content we have, but rather by the amount of ads scheduled to run in the paper. The more ads we sell, the bigger the paper.

Each Wednesday afternoon, Paula, The Gazette’s production manager, gives me a list of ad percentages the paper will be at for specific page amounts divisible by four (the amount of pages can only increase or decrease by four because a printed sheet of newspaper contains four pages). I’m usually given three choices (most often 36, 40 and 44 pages), and my input is desired because I am the staff member who has the best knowledge of how much content we have to fill the option that is ultimately selected.

More often than not, we have more content than space. This means we have to cut stories, photos and capsules, based on two factors: timeliness and importance, the latter being a judgmental call. If an event is happening before the next issue comes out, then it’s timely and will most likely make the cut. If it’s a photo from the Rosholt Fair, its importance comes into play because many people picking up the paper the week after the event will probably expect to see such a photo. The same applies to a story about a School Board or County Board meeting.

Items that may be held for the following week can include scholarship announcements, new business features, stories about events not taking place within the next two weeks, and some of the lighter stuff in our paper that’s great to read but not absolutely essential for immediate publication. For example, this week’s Gazette features a story about Patrick Rothfuss and his new book. The story could have been in last week’s paper, but we didn’t have any room for it, so we saved it for this week. Other than Rothfuss himself, and now people reading this column, no one else in this county would have known the story could have gone in last week’s paper.

Another story we had to save for this week, although its importance factor was somewhat high because it was about an event that took place the previous weekend, was one on the results of the JusticeWorks run, which featured a number of photos. Space played a major role in our decision to hold it, though, because it was quite lengthy and printing it would have prevented us from printing even more important and timely matters.

We try not to hold stories and photos for too long. Items that are held for one week are placed at the top of the list the next week. While this is not a guarantee for publication, it does help its cause.

The only way items could be guaranteed publication is if the amount of ads we sell or receive is guaranteed to be large enough to allow for the production staff to make the paper as large as necessary to fit everything.

Of course, more ads could create a vicious cycle that could lead to the same conclusion we have now: the holding of news content. Here’s how:

More ads and a bigger paper may mean additional news staff would need to be hired to produce more copy, which would allow us to provide even better county-wide coverage.

More writers and photographers would crank out additional copy, and combined with what we already have, the amount of content would again begin to exceed the amount of pages we would be allotted.

Right now, the paper has one full-time news writer (yours truly), one full-time sports writer (John Kemmeter) and one part-time news writer (Matthew Brown). We have a number of other Gazette contributors who submit articles on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis (George Rogers, Jim Schuh, Justin Isherwood, Nick Schultz, Bill Berry), and we have a number of community contributors who submit articles about their organizations and endeavors that we gladly print.

We also have a retired managing editor (Gene Kemmeter) who has become a rover who takes photos and writes stories for the paper based on where he is needed.

What I’m trying to say is buy more ads, or tell people you know who should advertise their business in our paper to try us out, because the potential for The Gazette is unlimited. Everyone would win, especially our subscribers who would receive an even better Gazette in their mailboxes on a weekly basis.

In his spaceship’s exploration of space, Kirk boldly went where no man had gone before. In The Gazette’s exploration of space, we’re trying to boldly go where the best newspapers have gone before: creating a publication everyone likes.