CityView Magazine

62 | Februar y 2020 T H E L A S T W O R D The Monthly Miracle BY TONY CHAVONNE C C. Frazer Smith's recent book about newspapering is titled "e Daily Miracle" – a term oen applied to newspaper publishing. Aer managing e Fayetteville Observer with its 400 employees, 200 carriers and daily production for over a decade, I have a great appreciation for all the pieces that must come together for the newspaper to show up on your front doorstep each morning. It is amazing that it happens every day, over and over again. No wonder they call it the Daily Miracle. So, what was I thinking when we agreed to publish our first issue only three weeks aer purchasing CityView? Aer all, if our team could handle the challenges of meeting daily deadlines what could be so hard about a monthly publication cycle? We should have recognized something was wrong when we found out that the previous distribution typically took three weeks – far longer than the two days we set for ourselves. It didn't help when the delivery from the printer was delayed and did not arrive until noon Friday before the start of a long holiday weekend with businesses and offices closed for three days. e call from the post office wasn't much better when we were told our postage payment had been misapplied and there were no funds in our permit account. We were all surprised to the see our first cover, and Johnny Horne's great photo, printed in a matte finish versus our requested glossy cover. Several of final edits didn't make it to print. And as I'm writing this column today our email is down as we convert to a different computer system, and our editor just lost several files containing stories she was planning to use for upcoming issues. But it is at those times that a staff comes together and makes it happen. Family members and friends stepped up and delivered CityView in less than two days. e postal clerk was able to correct the postage payment, and all our mailed copies were delivered. e printer called to apologize for the cover and promised it would never happen again. We all spent our Friday aernoon stuffing envelopes as we mailed copies to advertisers. And we've been promised the emails will work tomorrow. Such experiences make publishing a community magazine so challenging, but, at the same time, so very rewarding. Because of efforts like these, more people than ever are exposed to CityView. ey read informative stories and learn new things about our great community. Aer the challenges of our first issue, we continue to press on, working to improve the process as we go. We celebrate each success and wake up each day excited to face the next unanticipated challenge. I guess we can start calling it the Monthly Miracle. And now, if we can just find those missing files. Tony Chavonne and his two young grandsons

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