Editorial: Newspapers & Dolly Parton are subject to same laws of physics

Published 4:00 pm Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Once, when country singer Dolly Parton was in the middle of a live performance in front of a few thousand fans, two of her most famous attributes popped out of her blouse.

“Well, I guess this proves you can’t pour ten pounds of mud into a five-pound sack,” Parton quipped before buttoning up and going on with the show.

That same law of physics applies to newspapers. Yet every week, we hear from people who do not understand why we can’t pour ten pounds of words into a five-pound newspaper.

More often than not, these folks understand when we explain that, because of extremely limited space, we had to hold the story of their 92-year-old Great-Uncle Ned’s victory in last weekend’s Senior Sack Race … or their letter to the editor extolling the virtues of their favorite charitable organization … or their searing commentary about how Wallowa County will go to Helsinki in a handbasket if so-and-so wins the upcoming election.

But occasionally, by the time these people have finished dialing our phone number, they have managed to convince themselves that they are the victims of a grand conspiracy, perpetrated against them, their cause or their opinion by the Chieftain’s staff.

To a certain degree, this reaction is understandable. In their lives, at that moment, there is nothing going on within a 500-mile radius of downtown Enterprise that’s more important than Great-Uncle Ned’s accomplishment, and they want the world to know about it.

Honest: So do we. But if we’ve hit our five-pound limit for the week, there is virtually nothing we can do but hope to be able to pry it into our next sack of words … or, with luck, the sack after that.

However, when you feel your submitted information simply must be published as soon as possible, another option is available. The rules of physics that apply to the editorial side of newspapers do not apply quite so strictly to the advertising side. In fact, our advertising representatives will do everything in their power to guarantee placement of the material you want to see in print, when you want to see it.

Of course, in a perfect world, we’d all get what we want, when we want it, at no cost. Often, we can actually deliver that dream – and when it’s possible, we are happy to do so. But there are a few things you can do to help.

As you prepare your sumbission, remember that brevity is not merely the soul of wit; it’s also a quality that greatly increases your chances of being published ASAP. The longer the piece, the greater the odds it will not run at all or will have to be drastically cut. In other words, if you send us “Moby Dick,” we’ll have no choice but whittle it down into “Little Nemo.”

Submissions made by e-mail are guaranteed speedier entry into these pages than typewritten or handwritten entries. Why? Because we have to type them into our computer system, which adds time – sometimes quite a bit of time – to the process, on top of the five-pound-limit problem.

Please e-mail obituaries to (obits@wallowa.com); event and meeting announcements to (calendar@wallowa.com); and news or op-ed material to (editor@wallowa.com). After you’ve clicked the “send” button, give us a call (541-426-4567) to make sure we’ve received and found it among the literal hundreds of e-mails sent our way each day.

In the meantime, please remember that all newspapers deal with the five-pound limit in much the same way as the Chieftain – including the New York Times, despite it’s famous motto, “All the news that’s fit to print.”

Far more realistic is this paraphrase by Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman: “All the news that fits, we print.”