Good Friday

It's Good Friday, and one of the few days in the year that a Newfoundland daily newspaper doesn't publish. Thing is, I'm still contacted by readers with questions about our ongoing dispute with the mayor of St. John's, and about our use of particular letters to the editor. I'm cell-phoned up, and I know my desk editors will phone me this afternoon. Last week, at a meeting of managing editors in Halifax, I said I could remember a time when, once you were on the road, the only way the paper could reach you was to leave a message at your hotel. Then my cellphone rang. In the run of three hours, every managing editor there - 11 in all - took at least one telephone call. Editing a newspaper has turned into a seven-day-a-week job, and I'm sure not one of us actually noticed it happening.