Publishing A Paper In A Pandemic
EDITORIAL BOARD | FEB. 4, 2021 | OPINIONS
The year 2020 proved the necessity for journalists at a time of confusion and chaos. Initially relieved to have an extra week of spring break to focus on editing pages, Devil’s Advocate staff members, along with the rest of the world, quickly realized the road ahead would be an uphill battle. Learning how to publish a paper in a global pandemic may not have been in our initial job descriptions, to say the least, but it sparked a new wave of unparalleled adaptation, innovation, and persistence within the Devil’s Advocate newspaper.
After publishing the Devil’s Advocate's first-ever exclusively digital issue in April, it became increasingly obvious that the transition from in-person to virtual communication would not be easy. A nuisance of technical errors in the classroom that normally warranted a simple exchange of school computers now threatened the very basis of staff collaboration, editing, and page production. Quick hallway meetings between editors required scheduling video calls amid internet issues, temporary switches to eight classes a day meant little class time to work, and business shutdowns left members wondering where they would secure advertisements.
While many of these problems were worked around with the helpful experience of long-time staff members, this went almost entirely out the window when twelve new students were accepted for the 2020-2021 production year and had to be taught the complicated inner workings of the newspaper from their bedroom. In normal years, the staff gets together the week before the school year starts and attends a week-long workshop to teach new members, plan for the upcoming year, review journalism basics, and have staff bonding. Due to the circumstances, the Editorial Board had to design an entirely virtual summer workshop—something that had never been done before.
It would be an understatement to say that communication was awkward. It is extremely difficult to be one of the largest sources of student journalism on the campus and hardly be able to communicate with one’s own members. With students being able to choose between brick and mortar and virtual instruction, the administration was forced to compromise many electives for student schedules. This meant several members on staff, including over half of the Editorial Board, were no longer enrolled in the newspaper class. For many virtual students who faced this scheduling issue, they now essentially had nine classes to juggle and had to learn how to keep up with any newspaper affairs in their free time.
In the present day, online platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google calendars, and Zoom have become our essential means of keeping a sense of organization. The first issue was published fully online to accommodate business shutdowns that would normally cover the cost of printing in advertisements. Additionally, staff members have become multi-taskers even more so than usual. A member can attend a sports game, for example, take photos of players, write a digital story for it, and publish it on the website all by themselves. This avoids unnecessary crowd gatherings of the staff and helps to mend any extra communication issues that group work may entail.
The newspaper you are reading right now is the first regular cycle (non-special edition) issue to be printed this year. It is fully funded by our staff members’ hard work to secure advertisements, which is in part thanks to the reputation the Devil’s Advocate maintains and an elevated level of persistent virtual communication in business deals.
Trying to operate normally in this pandemic has not been easy for anyone, including the Devil’s Advocate staff. Nevertheless, the circumstances have forced us to adapt and overcome in ways we have never accomplished before, and expand our audience even more. Publishing a paper in a pandemic may not have been our ideal achievement this year, but it is certainly one the staff proudly and willfully works toward every day.