The Buzz Around Town
with Editor Kevin McManus
From above, Medina seems like a small, quiet town, but it is continually the busiest and most interesting of all served by The Post Newspapers. This past year was no different. Photo by KEVIN MCMANUS
It's a marathon, not a sprint.
That adage is used to describe a lot of different circumstances, but it holds true for what we do week in and week out here at The Post. It's something we tell each other often, mostly to keep ourselves sane and sharp ... and also so we don't kill each other when tensions are high.
It's a grind putting together nine separate print publications, often maxing out at 48 pages apiece, plus nine respective digital editions, north and south Trading Post sections and a special section on any given pub date.
On average, a conservative estimate at that, it's about 1,422 pages of news, advertisements and other content produced each week.
Across all nine Posts this year alone, we published more than 11,000 stories and news items and nearly 13,000 photos. Believe me, as one of the guys charged with putting together each edition in an assembly-line sort of fashion that spans every department of our operation, those are some seriously large figures when compared to peer publications.
While many print products throughout the world continue to dwindle and downsize, The Post, somehow, someway, keeps growing. This can partially be attributed to this year's launch of our new mobile-first format. If you haven't downloaded the app yet, you will only continue to miss out on content.
I say it every year, but I am always impressed by what our team is able to accomplish. I am just so proud of everyone pulling together. This was evident when we lost one of our own this month, Susan Griffiths, a talented graphic artist and customer service representative.
I learn so much from colleagues, many of whom are seasoned veterans of the trade, while I am still relatively green comparatively speaking. I am always learning from my teammates to better myself as an effective reporter and editor, grateful to have them by my side.
What I love most about my job – apart from the people I get to work with every day – is the unique position I hold because, these days in the news industry, if you want to continue to be useful, you have to wear a lot of hats. I wear a lot of hats as a beat reporter out in the public and one of the guys behind the scenes. Everybody at The Post wears multiple hats, with personnel often blurring our not-so-rigid departmental borders to get the job done.
I have made this comparison before: working at The Post is a lot like receiving nine newborn babies every week who need to be raised and perfectly polished before being sent out into the world on their own. At some point, you’ve done all you can to get your kids ready for the real world. Sure, occasionally we run a correction here and there, but what paper doesn’t? It’s sort of like raising a kid, I would imagine; sometimes, you notice permanent damage long after it’s already too late. You just move on.
But in this business, you have to have a short memory, for the most part. As quickly as the news cycle fluctuates, we are constantly looking onward to the next cycle’s breaking stories and developing updates, all the while striving for the accuracy and swiftness that have given our brand so much integrity over the last 40-plus years.
It can all flow together pretty seamlessly and the time really does fly by – mostly because we manage to have a lot of fun in the process.
It has been an interesting year with a healthy amount of feel-good features, tragic reports and everything in between. While The Post has always been known to have a bit of a "folksy" flare, what our editorial department prides itself in the most is feeding the appetite of hard news so many of our readers crave from their independent and hyper-local press.
We get better every year. Dozens of awards earned this year is evidence of that and I believe we can only continue to outdo ourselves. I'm certain we will.
In this week's Medina edition, you will find our annual year-in-review report, a news item so awesome in size that it requires tag-teaming by Staff Writer Allison Wood and me. Sifting through 52 weeks of PDF pages, it's easy to forget everything that occurred here in our flagship market, which continually lends itself to being the busiest and most interesting year after year, but maybe I'm a bit biased in that regard as a homer.
I am extremely grateful for our loyal audience, always quick to provide feedback and commentary whether online or in our opinion section. It’s you who help make this job so much fun. It's you we have to thank for our continued growth and success.
Thanks for sticking with and supporting The Post in 2016. I will see you in 2017.
Go Cavs!
Contact me
As always, I look forward to hearing from you and will gladly accept news tips at kmcmanus@thepostnewspapers.com.
Make it a great week, Medina.
That adage is used to describe a lot of different circumstances, but it holds true for what we do week in and week out here at The Post. It's something we tell each other often, mostly to keep ourselves sane and sharp ... and also so we don't kill each other when tensions are high.
It's a grind putting together nine separate print publications, often maxing out at 48 pages apiece, plus nine respective digital editions, north and south Trading Post sections and a special section on any given pub date.
On average, a conservative estimate at that, it's about 1,422 pages of news, advertisements and other content produced each week.
Across all nine Posts this year alone, we published more than 11,000 stories and news items and nearly 13,000 photos. Believe me, as one of the guys charged with putting together each edition in an assembly-line sort of fashion that spans every department of our operation, those are some seriously large figures when compared to peer publications.
While many print products throughout the world continue to dwindle and downsize, The Post, somehow, someway, keeps growing. This can partially be attributed to this year's launch of our new mobile-first format. If you haven't downloaded the app yet, you will only continue to miss out on content.
I say it every year, but I am always impressed by what our team is able to accomplish. I am just so proud of everyone pulling together. This was evident when we lost one of our own this month, Susan Griffiths, a talented graphic artist and customer service representative.
I learn so much from colleagues, many of whom are seasoned veterans of the trade, while I am still relatively green comparatively speaking. I am always learning from my teammates to better myself as an effective reporter and editor, grateful to have them by my side.
What I love most about my job – apart from the people I get to work with every day – is the unique position I hold because, these days in the news industry, if you want to continue to be useful, you have to wear a lot of hats. I wear a lot of hats as a beat reporter out in the public and one of the guys behind the scenes. Everybody at The Post wears multiple hats, with personnel often blurring our not-so-rigid departmental borders to get the job done.
I have made this comparison before: working at The Post is a lot like receiving nine newborn babies every week who need to be raised and perfectly polished before being sent out into the world on their own. At some point, you’ve done all you can to get your kids ready for the real world. Sure, occasionally we run a correction here and there, but what paper doesn’t? It’s sort of like raising a kid, I would imagine; sometimes, you notice permanent damage long after it’s already too late. You just move on.
But in this business, you have to have a short memory, for the most part. As quickly as the news cycle fluctuates, we are constantly looking onward to the next cycle’s breaking stories and developing updates, all the while striving for the accuracy and swiftness that have given our brand so much integrity over the last 40-plus years.
It can all flow together pretty seamlessly and the time really does fly by – mostly because we manage to have a lot of fun in the process.
It has been an interesting year with a healthy amount of feel-good features, tragic reports and everything in between. While The Post has always been known to have a bit of a "folksy" flare, what our editorial department prides itself in the most is feeding the appetite of hard news so many of our readers crave from their independent and hyper-local press.
We get better every year. Dozens of awards earned this year is evidence of that and I believe we can only continue to outdo ourselves. I'm certain we will.
In this week's Medina edition, you will find our annual year-in-review report, a news item so awesome in size that it requires tag-teaming by Staff Writer Allison Wood and me. Sifting through 52 weeks of PDF pages, it's easy to forget everything that occurred here in our flagship market, which continually lends itself to being the busiest and most interesting year after year, but maybe I'm a bit biased in that regard as a homer.
I am extremely grateful for our loyal audience, always quick to provide feedback and commentary whether online or in our opinion section. It’s you who help make this job so much fun. It's you we have to thank for our continued growth and success.
Thanks for sticking with and supporting The Post in 2016. I will see you in 2017.
Go Cavs!
Contact me
As always, I look forward to hearing from you and will gladly accept news tips at kmcmanus@thepostnewspapers.com.
Make it a great week, Medina.
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