Sunday through Thursday, one campus building on Maynard Street stays abuzz into the wee hours of the morning. Most of the editorial staff of The Michigan Daily go to work when their friends are at home and starting to study. During the fall and winter semesters, the student-run broadsheet—with a print circulation of 10,000 copies and some 230,000 unique visitors per month online—keeps its reporters, editors, and business staff on deadlines from dawn to well after dusk.
The student staff of more than 200 cover every University topic, from athletics and academia to culture and politics. But as the only remaining daily print newspaper in town, they also cover the city council and local happenings.
We take a behind-the-scenes look at The Michigan Daily students hard at work the night of Sunday, April 16.
Issues of The Michigan Daily are bound into one complete volume at the end of the fall and winter semesters. The volumes, now all digitized, reach back to the late 19th century. (See “Guest Column”)
6:00 PM
Approximately 50 editorial staff show up at the Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building. Tiles in the newsroom entrance bear the names of former editors.
7:37 PM
Editors discuss using a phone image in the paper. From left to right are senior photo editor Evan Aaron, co-managing sports editors Kevin Santo and Betelhem Ashame, and managing photo editor Amelia Cacchione.
8:12 PM
The newsroom starts to hunker down. Senior opinion editors Caitlin Heenan, left, and Jeremy Kaplan, center, along with editorial page editor Rebecca Tarnopol, look over various columns.
8:29 PM
Co-managing arts editor Natalie Zak, center, makes some final edits to her page, while arts beat editor Daniel Hensel, left, and senior arts editor Tess Garcia look on.
9:35 PM
Rebecca Tarnopol, the editorial page editor, places the final proof on the board. It is not unheard-of for top editors at The Daily to work up to 40 hours a week, but all staff are paid.
10:02 PM
The newsroom staff begins to relax again. Jason Rowland, right, co-editor of Michigan in Color (a section composed for and by students of color), tries balancing an umbrella.
10:15 PM
Senior news editors Riyah Basha, left, and Timothy Cohn, center, share a joke with Jennifer Meer, the summer managing news editor, while writing headlines. From May through August, The Daily is published weekly in a tabloid form and updated daily online.
11:48 PM
Senior sports editor Sylvanna Gross studies with Alex the Teddy Bear, a newsroom fixture. Late-breaking sports stories are often not filed until after midnight.
12:24 AM
The Michigan Daily Editor-in-Chief Emma Kinery works while waiting for the managing editors to submit their final pages. (Top editors serve a calendar-year term.) With a 1:30 a.m. press deadline, she must stay until all pages are exported to the printer.
Photos by Leisa Thompson
