Pizza and poll numbers go together

During the last presidential election — actually during the last four (five if you count college) — I was working at a general news, or mainstream, newspaper. This is my first presidential election working for an agriculture weekly. The pace is decidedly different.

Election Day is always a big day at mainstream papers and is generally a long day for staffers, particularly editors. Lots of pizzas will be consumed in newsrooms around the country today as journalists work to report the most up-to-date news and election results from the presidential race right on down to local boards and commissions.

Here at the Capital Press, we are not so wrapped up in political coverage. For one thing, our paper won't come out until Friday, so everyone will know who won what where (except perhaps for the Washington state gubernatorial race). And since we cover four states, the hyper-local races, which may be highly important to some of our readers, will be of absolutely no interest to most of our readers. So our political coverage will be confined to reaction to the results in the presidential race, a couple of U.S. Senate races, some statewide races and a ballot measure or two.

Another contrast between the Capital Press and the mainstream press, is that the mainstreamers will be burning the midnight oil to get results out while our staff will be working a pretty normal schedule today. But if you are an election news junkie and a capitalpress.com reader, I'll be posting some of the major election results for you tonight on our website. Maybe I'll order a pizza to make the experience seem a little more like old times.