{"id":507,"date":"1994-06-27T08:44:00","date_gmt":"1994-06-27T15:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/?p=507"},"modified":"2020-07-09T09:54:28","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T16:54:28","slug":"a-peek-behind-the-scenes-at-the-westmoreland-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/1994\/06\/27\/a-peek-behind-the-scenes-at-the-westmoreland-news\/","title":{"rendered":"A Peek Behind the Scenes at The Westmoreland News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jeffrey Carl<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The Westmoreland News, June 27 1994<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Working at the Westmoreland News in 1994 was the best summer job I ever had. I worked for peanuts and had a two hour drive each way from Richmond, but I got to do it all at a small county newspaper where I was a reporter, feature writer, copy editor, layout editor and photographer (because there was nobody else to do those things). Best of all the paper’s editor, Lynn Norris, gave me the freedom to write whatever I wanted – way more journalistic and comedic freedom than anyone should rightly give a know-it-all 21-year-old writing for a weekly in the deeply rural Northern Neck of Virginia. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We here at the Westmoreland News<\/em> pride ourselves on being responsive to our readers.  So, we decided to take this opportunity to answer some of the most frequently-asked questions about the newspaper and how it comes, fresh and  piping hot, to your door every week except for those weeks when we really don\u2019t feel like it.  So let\u2019s open up the ol\u2019 mailbag … and trust me, it\u2019s heavier than you can shake a stick at … and answer some of those reader questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: Who writes the <\/strong>Westmoreland News<\/em>? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A: Well, that is a rather complicated question.  Originally, the newspaper was written by clever trained seals, using special typewriters with very, very large keys. The newspaper won several awards for journalistic excellence, but eventually the rising cost of fish forced the paper\u2019s management to return the seals to the wild.  Later the seals all went to work for Entertainment Tonight<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a short while in the 1960s, the Westmoreland News<\/em> was written by human reporters.  While they had certain advantages over the seals – opposable thumbs for using the coffee machine, for example – this strategy was later abandoned in favor of more cost-effective methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever heard the theory that if you had an infinite number of monkeys, typing away at an infinite number of typewriters, that one of them would eventually type Hamlet<\/em>?  Well, from 1962 to 1976, a full-time staff of twelve monkeys actually did type the Westmoreland News.  While there were small problems – some complained about the overuse of the phrase \u201cgoing bananas\u201d in the paper – for the most part, things ran smoothly, and the monkeys actually made fewer misspellings and typographical errors than any other staff to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the late 1970s, the paper\u2019s management decided it would be cheaper simply not to publish a newspaper at all.  Between 1977 and 1986, over 350,000 blank newspapers were passed out, while the populace was told that the paper was simply \u201cwritten in invisible ink.\u201d  Because nobody could remember whether you were supposed to rub milk or lemon juice or whatever it was to be able to read invisible ink, nobody tried it and hence nobody noticed until the mid-eighties.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scandal struck in 1987 when a 3rd grader, working on a science project, discovered the formula for decoding invisible ink, applied it to the newspaper, and discovered that there actually wasn\u2019t anything there.  Mass hysteria ensued, and the paper was threatened with violence by its former \u201cinvisible advertisers.\u201d  The newspaper\u2019s owners needed to find a rational explanation for what had happened, and after careful consideration they decided to blame the whole thing on ink-sucking giant killer mutant space wombats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The public bought the wombat story, but the paper\u2019s management still needed a staff.  Various options – more seals, escaped mental patients, even just xeroxing the Washington Post<\/em> and sticking a new name on it – were considered.  Eventually, they decided on hiring space alien robots to write the newspaper.  These plucky, humanoid-looking, inhuman mechanized monsters have been writing the Westmoreland News<\/em> since 1988, and we\u2019re still going strong.  And remember – \u201cTo Serve Man\u201d is our motto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: How long does it take to make each week\u2019s newspaper?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A: It takes the Westmoreland News<\/em>\u2019 full staff of 55 alien robots over six weeks to produce each action-packed newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: But the paper comes out once a week.  How can it possibly take six weeks to make the paper?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A: Look, we\u2019re journalists, not mathematicians.  Next question?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: Where do you get your ideas for stories from?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A: Once a week, the newspaper\u2019s writing staff gets together for a story conference.  They get together with a pot of coffee and an ounce of marijuana and gets stoned out of their minds and say things like, \u201cWow … wouldn\u2019t it be, like, cool, to do a story on if trees can dream?\u201d   Because most of the ideas generated at these story conferences are just as stupid as that one, most of the ideas that actually get used have to come from somewhere else. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of our ideas come from you – the community.  Occasionally someone will throw a rock in through the office window with a note tied to it with a story idea.  Other times, someone will write in to tell us how they think we\u2019re doing.  After we disarm the bomb that comes with it and scrape the flaming dog poo off of the letter and read it, we will sometimes find an idea for a story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, most of our ideas come from the time-honored journalistic tradition of stealing them from another newspaper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: Does the newspaper take and develop its own photographs?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A: Yes and no.  The Westmoreland News does, in fact, have its own picture department, but they aren\u2019t actually photographs.  Our reporters carry around small boxes that look like cameras but actually have tiny people living inside them.  When the shutter opens, these tiny artistic wonders draw everything they see on a little pad of paper there inside the \u201ccamera.\u201d  The public should feel safe in the knowledge that its little newspaper is on the cutting edge of technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: Is the <\/strong>Westmoreland News<\/em> famous for anything?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A: Of course.  Aside from the period of social activism when the Westmoreland News<\/em> led the fight to get the Virginia State Song changed to \u201cWe Will Rock You,\u201d the paper is famed for its 100% correctness in its weather forecasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: But you don\u2019t have any weather forecasts.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A: Mind your own damn business.  Next question?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: Are you people actually being paid for this junk?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A: Well, it seems that we\u2019re out of space for the reader mailbag this week.  Remember to keep those cards, letters and small ticking packages coming so we can respond to your ideas and requests, because every letter to the Westmoreland News is opened, read, and considered by the whole staff.  Then, the spelling and grammar errors are circled and the staff gets together and laughs at the person who wrote the letter.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So long, and we\u2019ll see you in the funny papers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jeffrey Carl Working at the Westmoreland News in 1994 was the best summer job I ever had. I worked for peanuts and had a two hour drive each way from Richmond, but I got to do it all at a small county newspaper where I was a reporter, feature writer, copy editor, layout editor … Continue reading A Peek Behind the Scenes at The Westmoreland News<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,20],"tags":[42],"class_list":["post-507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","category-the-westmoreland-news","tag-westmoreland"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":508,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507\/revisions\/508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffcarl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}