A Day in the Life of a Comment Editor
I wake up, go to class, do homework, scream at homework, and then sleep. The end. No, I’m just joking. While all of these things do happen, I also have to work on the next Comment issue, and while my title may be ‘editor,’ there is a lot more than that when it comes to assembling the paper.
As for what each day looks like for me, it’s actually a bit different every time and is much more of a two-week process. This process starts with our pitch meetings. Every other Thursday, I have to gather some pitches for the Campus Life section. I try to scroll on Engage and walk around campus in search of various ideas on what we can do articles on.
Once the pitches are assigned, the next step is the planning. This is usually a single-day process that I do on Monday during my office hours. For a lot of campus life pieces, we try to include an interview, so often the planning involves finding a person to interview (editor-in-chief, Nina, is a great help with this!) and writing some questions. The interview usually happens on Tuesday or Wednesday. From there, I can actually start the writing, which is admittedly the longest step. I often find myself rewriting paragraphs constantly and trying different flows.
After the weekend, I can begin the editing. I review the submitted articles to fix any grammar mistakes, sentence flow issues, or typos. In addition, if a writer didn’t include a picture, I try to find one. These edits are due by Wednesday afternoon so that on Wednesday night, we can put together the paper itself. This is done by our wonderful creative director, Sam.
And with that, the newspaper is ready to be read (or turned into paper mâché)! It certainly is a lot of work, but I do enjoy it a lot.
