Saratoga News

August: It's the month editors fear

By Dale Bryant

August, the month that strikes terror into the hearts of editors everywhere, has arrived right on schedule. Editors know instinctively to fear August. It is the time officialdom goes on vacation; schools are not yet back in session and everyone is humming "See you in September" like a mantra.

When I was in college, there was a popular song with that title, and I can still remember the warm feeling it gave me to utter these words to classmates as I loaded up the car and headed home for three carefree months. That was before I learned that "carefree" is one of the worst words in the journalist's lexicon. It's words like "conflict," "debate," "brouhaha," and, my particular favorite, "flap," that now warm the cockles of my heart.

There probably isn't an editor alive who hasn't filled a column with musings about what a slow news month August is. Discerning readers might even think this is my contribution to the genre.

In October, I dread my overflowing in-basket. How will we handle all this information--and where will we find room for it? I ask myself. But in August, I'm like a little kid hoping the mailman will bring me something. I even perk up my ears when the phone rings, hoping, as I did as a youth, that it will be for me. Only in August.

In the world of farming, a field lying fallow has a purpose. Too much planting can deplete the soil of nutrients.

But in the news business, a page lying fallow is a crisis. Shortly after I began my career as a journalist, a friend asked me if I had to go to the office every day, and she seemed surprised when I said yes. "But what if there's nothing to write about?" she asked innocently. "What do you do?" Now there's something to ponder during the dog days of summer.

August is the month when photographs of cute kids running through sprinklers get elevated to news status, and editors are thankful to receive a long list of county fair winners.

The community begins to stir early in September, and by the middle of the month, every school and organization has an event scheduled--for October.

I first became familiar with the phrase "feast or famine" when I was a teenager. I worked a few hours a week at Lundblads Lodge on Oak Street in Saratoga. Hazel Bargas, who was in her late 70s at the time, had lived in the fine old house since her childhood. I always knew what kind of a day it was going to be shortly after she opened the front door to let me in.

"Three people for dinner," she would say as I followed her down the dark hallway. Then she'd shake her head and sigh, "It's always feast or famine." Or she'd say, "We have 15 for dinner." Then she'd shake her head and sigh, "It's always feast or famine." In my naiveté, I used to find her constant use of this phrase amusing.

Now I know Hazel was right. It is always feast or famine.

The amount of editorial space in a newspaper is, of course, directly related to advertising sales. Some weeks we have more space than we do other weeks. But, generally speaking, all newspapers fill the same amount of space regardless of whether there's a lot of news or hardly any at all.

Slow news days are what public relations people dream about. The chances of a PR handout showing up in a newspaper are much greater on a slow news day. But alas for the poor PR folks, August is slow for them, too. Their clients begin to stir in early September and start making plans by the middle of the month. They want to publicize their causes or events--in October.

Life in a newspaper office gets pretty hectic by the middle of September, and it stays that way, with each story competing for its fair share of space. This goes on through the fall and climaxes with a rash of holiday events. Then about the middle of December, we start hearing those dread words: "Let's talk about it after the holidays."

Dale Bryant is the editor of the Saratoga News.

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