The Enterprise creates one more miracle

The first issue of The Beaumont Enterprise was dated Nov. 6, 1880. It actually published Nov. 7th, a day later. It was a Sunday, which caused outrage among some members of the community because publication was on the Sabbath.

Times and technology have changed substantially since those days of hand-set lead type, but occasionally getting your newspaper to you is a greater challenge than anticipated.

This past Thursday was one of those days.

Ordinarily copy editors come to work sometime around 2:30 p.m. and complete the production portion of their job around 10:30 p.m. They are the people who take all the stories and photos and put them together in a neat package called your newspaper.

There was nothing ordinary about Thursday.

By 6:30 p.m. the majority of the reporting and editing staff had already completed the day’s work, but the copy editors were just getting into theirs. Then the computer system through which we create the newspaper died, crashed, became completely inaccessible.

Of course, being a corporation, we had a backup plan. Problem is the backup plan wasn’t working either.

Almost three hours later, things were getting a bit stressful as we faced the possibility of not being able to produce our Friday newspaper. Plan B became Plan C with personal e-mail addresses becoming the manner of communication.

The computer program remained inoperative until late into the production cycle. We produced The Enterprise three hours past deadline, inconveniencing carriers and disappointing customers, for which we apologize.

In spite of the obstacles, unlike our earliest predecessors, we got the newspaper out on the day it was dated.

Our editor has been known to say that what we do every day is a miracle: pulling together information from many sources, produced by many people; packaging, printing and distributing it within a 24-hour cycle.

Wednesday it took a bit of divine intervention to pull off the miracle. We thank our readers for understanding that, and for their patience.
* * *
Our Friday paper included a large black and white photograph of a Tea Party rally in Arizona, along with an Associated Press story about the national Tea Party gatherings in recognition of Tax Day.

An inset included some additional information about the gathering of Tea Party supporters at Ford Park.

Our original plan called for one of our photographers to take a photo, but that didn’t work out. A reporter did attend and cover a portion of the event as planned.

We reported that was attended by “hundreds,” which, in the first hours of the event, was accurate.

Though we tried to get official confirmation of attendance at the event, neither Ford Park, where the event was held, nor any local law enforcement agencies could provide that confirmation.

In Saturday’s edition we ran a commentary on the opinions page reporting that thousands attended.

A very nice Tea Party participant with whom I spoke Monday told me they actually handed out tickets in an effort to accurately track attendance and they handed out 2,000 tickets.

We didn’t get a lot of phone calls or e-mails about our coverage of the event, though many of the dozen or so contacts were very angry.

What they lacked in quantity of complaints they more than made up for with their elevated anger levels.

Several complained that we did cover the event, expressing the point of view that the Tea Party is too right-wing and serves as an unofficial arm of the Republican Party and therefore should not be covered.

We, long ago, made the determination to consider coverage of such events, recognizing that interest is high enough to warrant coverage in spite of political trappings.

It became clear early in the day Friday that the complaints we were receiving were not from random callers, but instead were part of an organized campaign.

In fact, at one point, one of the nicer callers actually told me that — that those attending the event had been told to call the newspaper (and I’m sure other media) to complain if the gathering did not receive what they deemed to be appropriate coverage.

One very angry woman continually referred to herself as a “good American.” She and several others also threatened cancellation of their newspaper subscription as retribution for our perceived slight.

In the end, I could only tell that angry woman and others like her that I, too, consider myself to be a “good American,” and therefore believe strongly in our Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, and especially the first amendment allowing Freedom of the Press.

I suggested she might want to support that freedom by keeping her subscription.

Ultimately I, and others here, recognize that is her choice and her right only because we live in a country that allows that freedom.