[I wrote this article for my magazine writing class and it is also posted to The Grady Journal. The piece details how The Red & Black newspaper covered the election results. I thought I'd post it up here just for memory's sake. After all, these moments are also integral to my own experience of the historic night. Please excuse any grammatical or style errors, it's probably one of my most rushed articles ever.]
Posted November 5, 2008 by Julie Leung
Fingers are poised above keyboards, all eyes are concentrated on laptop or television screens.
Five students and one editorial advisor are seated around a makeshift conference table, all facing the 21-inch Philips television set on CNN.
New Hampshire is called, and the barrage of typing is instantaneous. Various pings from the four Apple laptops and one Dell are heard as comments get posted.
Live blog posts, interactive maps and online polls. This is history chronicled, second by second, by student staff of The Red & Black newspaper.
Gearing Up
6:30 p.m. The Design Corral
No one touches the Bit o’ Honey candy except for Shannon, the managing editor. Dressed in a zebra-print cardigan with a pink scarf wrapped around her dark brown hair, Shannon is the most festive object in a room dominated by black, white and gray décor.
“These things are good,” she says, snatching a couple of the red- and yellow-wrapped bonbons from the small cardboard box.
“Happy Election Day !!!! Have Some Candy !!!” reads the 8×11 greeting taped to the inside flap. The container, once brimming with more popular goodies such as Kit Kats, Nerds and Spree’s, has already been ravished by many a passerby. Only these garish candies remain.
“FOOD!” shouts Ed, the editorial advisor from somewhere near the rear upstairs entrance. His voice booms loudly over the rows of cubicles separating the circle of page design computers and the conference room.
It is a clarion call. Melanie, the Out & About page designer whirls around on her chair and heads toward the back room, her face ecstatic. “Food!” she echoes.
Twenty student editors, writers, photographers and page designers descend like vultures on the twelve pizzas set out in the conference room. Pushing past chairs and handing out paper plates to each other, the newsroom prepares for the long haul, armed with soda, pizza and candy.
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