Holidays or no holidays, the pursuit of great stories goes on
The grandest holiday season of the year is suddenly behind us, and as I reflect on newspapering during the last two weeks of December, I’m transported to a long-ago memory involving summertime and events that are neither American nor festive.
Over the course of many roles in the Daily Herald newsroom, I was responsible some years ago for recruiting newsroom staff. In one case, we were looking for a business reporter in late July and found a good fit with a Barrington native who had moved to work for newspapers in Europe and was looking to come back home. We reached a deal, and I asked how long we would have to wait to set a start date.
“It shouldn’t be long,” the new hire responded. “The whole country shuts down here for two weeks in August, so I’m able to pretty much leave any time.”
The conversation has stayed with me. I couldn’t imagine how a newspaper could continue to operate with all or most of its staff on vacation along with the rest of the population. I’m not familiar enough with the press in European countries to know the answer, but the circumstance does have some real resonance with the end-of-year holiday season here.
From the weekend before Christmas to the weekend after New Year’s Day, people’s attention concentrates on family and friends and festive gatherings and many non-retail businesses, including newspapers, experience a mass exodus of staff members looking to get away for the holidays. The situation creates complicated staffing challenges, so businesses have to do careful planning to keep running smoothly.
We’ve learned to do that pretty well at the Daily Herald over the years. Because the year-end is such a big time of reflection, it’s a good opportunity to prepare in advance stories that look back on events of the previous year and ahead to issues we’ll all face in the year to come. We also remain committed to a high quality of reporting and presentation about news, people and events in the suburbs, so we work hard to find stories that can be produced for this period that will have strong local appeal.
And then, we realize after the decorations are taken down, the parties are cleaned up and the toys are put away, that we’ve done a lot of interesting, important stories that readers distracted by the mood of the season may have overlooked.
Of course, no one misses big news like the death of a former president, a near government shutdown, the difficulties of travel or even a Bears win over the Packers. But did you also notice Christopher Placek’s behind-the-scenes examination on Dec. 22 of the negotiations leading to a tax deal involving the Bears, the village of Arlington Heights and three school districts? Or, similarly, how about Jake Griffin’s New Year’s Eve report on the record impact of cannabis sales on the state’s budget and the outlook for the future? And then there was Charles Keeshan and Susan Sarkauskas’s captivating review on Jan. 3 of the search by the Elgin Police Department’s unique Cold Case Unit for what happened to a 23-year-old Elgin woman who disappeared without a trace in April 1983.
These are meaningful and substantial stories. Others weren’t quite so consequential, but certainly could capture your attention. Like Katlyn Smith’s descriptive peek on Christmas Day at a newly expanded animal shelter in DuPage County, complemented with unforgettable pictures by John Starks. Or Marie Wilson’s heartwarming feature Dec. 22 on families celebrating during the rare coincidence of Christmas and the start of Hanukkah on the same day.
And there were may more, far too many to list, and in every section of the paper. Sports writer Mike McGraw offered up a two-part series last weekend on how the North Central College in Naperville became a Division three football powerhouse. There were numerous stories about restaurants opening or changing course, including Rick West’s review of new restaurants coming to the suburbs this year and Eric Peterson’s report on a steakhouse preparing to jump into the spot left open by the closing of The Local Kitchen & Tap in Schaumburg.
There was, in short, great work in the Daily Herald throughout the holiday period, despite preoccupations with holiday festivities. If your attention was diverted by a two-week concentration on other matters, it could be well worth your time to go through back editions or jump onto our website at dailyherald.com and take a look at what you might have missed.
• Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is managing editor for opinion at the Daily Herald. Follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jim.slusher1 and on X at @JimSlusher. His new book “Conversations, community and the role of the local newspaper” is available at eckhartzpress.com.