Editor-for-a-day and change agent for a lifetime.(The Last Laugh)

August 4 will be a very memorable Wednesday for me. It's the day I'll be editor-for-the day of our local Madison newspaper, the Wisconsin State Journal. Although I was a journalism major getting BA and MA degrees from the University of Wisconsin, I haven't been in a newspaper newsroom in decades.

How'd it happen? A colleague spotted the opportunity up for bids in a local fundraising auction for charity and made it happen.

 
  #179: Editor-for-a-day. Spend a day with ... Ellen Foley ... editor of 
  the Wisconsin State Journal and learn the ins and outs of the newsroom 
  ... free lunch ... decide what will go on the front page. 

For a $180 business expense, I'll witness the internal workings of a publication about as opposite as it could be from WIHE. It's a daily newspaper, with a circulation of more than 600,000, hundreds of employees including dozens in the newsroom, many editorial departments and annual revenues into the stratosphere.

In contrast, WIHE is monthly, has a circulation of around 2,000 (and pass-on of 8,000), no employees but a whole lot of interesting independent contractors and one editor / publisher, and revenues that permit us to rent an office in the basement of an insurance agency.

What about the newspaper?

As a daily subscriber to the WSJ for 38 years and a journalist, I feel a moral obligation to read each section of every issue, even those that pile up when I'm gone to conferences. I often find items for WIHE's Newswatch section.