A Greencastle native and a 2017 graduate of Wabash College, Brand Selvia is passionate about history, conversation and classic cars. Nicknamed "Brando" by family and friends, Selvia loves chatting over a cup of coffee or glass of bourbon, as well as joyriding in his 1974 Volkswagen Beetle.

Typos and the bigger picture

Posted Wednesday, July 3, 2019, at 2:55 PM

Photo credit: The New York Times/Rebecca J. Rosen, The Atlantic

In trying to think about this blog post, I have found myself taking one route to reflect on how fast-paced this week has seemed up to now, though we're halfway through.

This one was not intended to be very involved, given how busy we've been just trying to gather everything we can together and strategize what stories will run and when.

Monday was particularly hectic for Jared, who was covering the last-minute filings for the local elections coming up in November. I was in the newsroom during the morning and early afternoon looking out for obits and squaring away some press releases.

At this moment, it remains to be seen just how frenzied the Fourth of July will be. Though the office will be closed both Thursday and Friday, we will produce a paper.

I think how much patience and care goes into designing the paper is sometimes overlooked. It is perhaps even more so when it comes to still trying to gather needed information before Nicole can set the pages. Monday night was one of those cases where Jared persisted to include the further details about the hit-and-run on I-70.

The phrase "Make haste slowly" can be applied to the later-night reviews of the paper. Trust is necessary when we're doing the legwork before we come up against deadline. I can be pretty confident that the weekly article for the Summer Music Festival will be fine, because I will have gone over it at least two times before we get to proofing pages.

This helps when we have to "race" against the clock, because at this point we're looking for style issues like numbers needing to be written out and publication names needing italics, as well as re-reading our own stories for clarity and, yes, typos.

We are only human, and we do occasionally miss typos. A couple of peanut gallery characters who troll the website are all too pleased with themselves to point them out, without thinking critically about how we've been able to get the information and still make it timely. The big picture seems not to matter much to these commentators.

We don't have that third pair of eyes with Eric still being gone. It has been difficult sometimes to keep our normal beats together and still be available elsewhere. Jared has taken on more double duty as an editor and a father, but he still tells me what can be done, and then he lets me do it. We still have pretty good time getting it done, too.

That's leadership. That's also teamwork, communication and trust put into action. It's how we all have been able to do so much more than keep our heads above the current.