Life of an Executive editor

This has been one of the most stressful work weeks so far. Not the worst, because I've had some bad ones, and have even shed some tears over the years. It's been rough, but I realized this week why I have the fancy title and make the big dollars -LOL!

Because I work for a non-profit, there are different rules about things, especially politics. So when a community member wanted to create and pay for a negative political ad - a double truck, and for those of you who are not newspaper folk that means two full pages side by side, I had to think hard. It was also a local, community campaign. I'm talking small community here.

I not only had to think, I had to do some research. This process took about 2 1/2 days. I'm a slow thinker, yes, but that wasn't what took the 2 1/2 days.

First I knew I had to approve the ad before it could run, and made that clear through the ad rep to the customer. Then the ad had to be pre-paid, and check clear the bank prior to publication. Not a problem. As I researched a bit more it looked as if we couldn't run the ad at all, based on the code I was reading pertaining to non-profits.

The customer was not happy.

I then researched more and found something in our guidelines that led me to think maybe it was the type of ad that if we ran it, it would require him to pay for postage. Our paper is mailed, and this had to do with non-profit stuff, so he would have had to pay postage at the regular postal rate of more than $1 a copy. We mail more than 8,000 copies. Yes, the math was looking scary for this person.

And he was not happy.

I assured the ad rep I was continuing to do some research on the topic.

Oh, did I mention this ad came in on Monday - deadline day?

I decided I needed someone with legal experience to look at the code and tell me if we would be allowed to run it. It seemed we should if we ran political ads in the past, and we have.

So I called on someone with such experience. It was late, I don't know, maybe 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday. He assured me that we could run it and it would not have an effect on the non-profit status.

Then as I started to really read the ad and wade through it for possible libel, I again wanted some help. I consulted with that person again, the next day, and though there were a few things in the ad I had questions about, there was only one item that he said could be a problem.

I again talked to the ad rep, and the customer agreed to omit that item.

This was Wednesday, I think. It could have been yesterday morning because my days have all run together now.

At the same time I was doing the research, trying to find the person to consult with, and calling my assistant editor and chewing it over with her, stories and photos were coming at me left and right.

Also on deadline day, I got a call from an ad rep who was in the hospital and couldn't contact her customers nor could she get to her paperwork to turn in her orders for ads. Guess who had to do that?

I'm getting off topic--sort of.

There were other problems with advertising this time, but I'll keep it to this one.

In the middle of this, the customer threatened to sue if we didn't run it. Now that didn't scare me, and I put it out of my mind as I tried to get to the answers I was seeking. Some people on the board were quite frustrated with that, and I was fielding those E-mails too.

The president of the board sent an E-mail message that stated the decision was mine, and they would support me in the decision.

Meantime, stories were piled up ready to be edited, and I had a couple or three of my own that I was supposed to be writing.

On top of all of this, I had a serious E-mail exchange with a staff member that turned into a topic for our staff meeting. And as you can imagine, the staff meeting was this week too. Last night in fact.

I had to collect my thoughts, put them on paper, and present them at this meeting. I was ready for anything. (No worries, there's a liquor store just around the corner from the office. I could hit it on the way home.)

I didn't need the bottle.

The meeting was the highlight of the week. I think it's the only thing that has gone really well this week.

It's Friday, and I still have to proof the paper this weekend. But for tonight, and a little bit of tomorrow, I'm going to relax.

Then I just wait for the bombs to hit after we go to print.

Even with all of this craziness, I like my job.