Here's how it goes

It’s Friday morning, to be technical, at 1:15 a.m., officially past deadline by an hour and fifteen minutes. We’re waiting on News. We’re cranky and in need of refreshments. Most kids are out at the bars. Josh is playing a ukulele, and Greg is watching YouTube videos of skateboarders. Mike is pacing around the room ready to hit the town or go to sleep --whatever sounds better in another hour. Kelly just finished trimming News and we’re sending it now. Since the production staff decided to rebel and not write today’s wonderful blog, we’ve decided to give an account of the typical production night which runs from Sunday through Thursday.

5 p.m. -- Section editors come in to check their mailboxes for stories, scan the art folder for photos and chat about random happenings or Britney Spears. In the office, Liz checks her e-mails and phone messages. Sometimes the guys from SGTV come in to mingle. The newsroom is abuzz.
5:30 p.m. -- Editorial board meets to discuss what to write about. “What’s our opinion on something?” we ask ourselves. Alexis comes in with a story from CNN.com about a Chewbacca that attacked someone at an amusement park and then said, “Nobody tells this Wookie what to do.” With nothing to say we debate energy drinks instead. Most of the time we tell our own experiences before we get frustrated and decide we’ve had enough --the editor can get 224 words out of that.
6 p.m. -- Copy editors begin to trickle in. They scan the whiteboard to see what section they want to read. The newsroom gets louder. Page designers wander in, too. They check the board to see how many stories each section has before getting assignments from the design directors.
6:30 p.m. -- Editors go to dinner. Grab food from the GMP, or some place, and return to the conference room to watch whatever random show is on TV.
7 p.m. -- Stories make their way from copy desk to Slot where the copy desk chief reads them and forwards them through to the editor’s folder.
8 p.m. -- The television begins to distract the newsroom buzz. Stories are slowly making their way into the Onpage folder.
10 p.m. -- Pages start to get finished and copy editors take their places to write headlines. Editors look over shoulders anxiously. Usually deadlines are given. “You’ve got 20 minutes.” That can be a lot of pressure.
11 p.m. -- Trimming. The copy desk chief and editor scan the pages for mistakes, correcting headlines, cutlines and jumps. The online guys come in to put finished pages online.
12 a.m. -- Deadline. Sometimes it comes and goes while others are packing up, getting ready to go.

And the rest of the night is downhill from there. You get the picture. It’s quite a process. Maybe we’ll continue this next Thursday night after another missed deadline and another late night. But until then, this is The Daily Gamecock Thursday late night staff. OUT.
It’s 1:50 a.m.