Many of you have seen the finished product—a 16-page newspaper exposing the hard facts of our Whitman community.  But what you probably don’t know is how it happens.

Right before the paper is published, the Black & White has “flat week,” a week of chaotic editing, finalizing, and laying out the paper.  From the second school ends until around 8:30 at night (or possibly later), the Black & White room is crowded with people snacking, writing, editing, or doing homework.  At around 6:30, food comes and everyone stops what he or she is doing for a quick 15-minute dinner, then gets back to work.

Day 1: Monday November 3rd, 2014

First day of flat week.  The day is hectic.  Writers spend time writing and looking over drafts to hand into their editors.  Editors revise articles multiple times for numerous writers.  This is when the most work gets done. Writers can go through five drafts a day, and their editors edit all of them along the way.  Production staff begins to layout the paper, first creating the page layout on a whiteboard, called the storyboard, and then making layouts on Indesign, the program used to create the paper.  At the end of the day, writers are ready for the next round of drafts, editors have their pens ready to revise, and production is looking forward to placing the final stories onto the layout.

Day 2: Tuesday November 4th, 2014

Tuesday was a day off from school.  For most, it meant sleeping in, watching TV and catching up on assignments.  But for those on the Black & White, it meant staying online all day writing their stories and waiting for edits.  When writers aren’t in the Black & White room, they live on Google Drive, where a lot of editing is done.  Editors read drafts and leave notes for writers to fix and create yet another draft.

Day 3: Wednesday November 5th, 2014

Today, many writers are on their last few legs of editing and revising and are much closer to the end goal of a completed article.  The structure is similar to many other days as editors edit and writers make changes.  Many articles are sent to “Top Five,” the top editors for the Black & White. Production begins placing articles on the pages, and starts advising writers to cut down the story or add more information in order to fit in the allotted space.

Day 4: Thursday November 6th, 2014

Production is in full swing today, hounding down on writers to add a word here or cut a sentence there so the stories will fit perfectly on the page.  Writers are finishing up their last drafts, with editors leaving final remarks before being sent back.  The Black & White room clears out early tonight, as people leave early with this cycle’s stories finished and behind them.  Now it is up to production, the top editors, and copy editors to finish and pull everything together.

Day 5: Friday November 7th, 2014

It’s the last day of the cycle and the Black & White room is almost empty.  Only the production staff, top editors, and a few writers are staying after school to finish up the last of their work.  Production works on finishing up the placing of stories, pictures, headlines, captions, attributions and graphics onto the paper.  Copy editors scroll through each page looking for big mistakes, small mistakes, and silly mistakes all the same.  At the end of the day, the staff can look at their finished product in triumph, a 16-page paper we like to call “The Black & White.”