This week’s news coverage is reflective of a straightforward news week. There were new developments in ongoing projects like a school bond update and city park upgrades. There are also new conversations beginning about how new development might affect other districts.
In other words, it was like a scoop of top-shelf vanilla bean ice cream. Tasty, but still vanilla.
When political drama takes a breather — at least until closer to November — it gives me a chance to talk about those things that are always happening in the background, whether the week is noisy or quiet.
The news business is a lot like operating a theme park.
Industries are essentially groups of people. Most people are complex and multilayered. So why would we expect industries to have fewer strata?
From the outside, the news industry looks like the information exchange business. Which is true, but it’s also a bit incomplete.
It’s not just stories and headlines. It’s promotions and advertising. It’s publishing obituaries for community members. It’s running legal notices that most people don’t read until they suddenly need to.
And here’s a detail most folks don’t know: each one of those legal notices is accompanied on the back end with a legal packet that includes a publisher’s affidavit. That’s responsibility that comes with putting something in print.
There is a good deal of legal obligation that comes along with being a news publisher, and those rules and regulations date back to some of the earliest days of our nation’s foundation. You don’t just “post” information and call it journalism.
You publish it. You stand behind it. You sign your name to it.
What you receive each week is around 12 pages of published information about important things happening around you. Much of it shapes the way you live, the services you have access to, and the taxes you pay.
But there is a good deal that goes into those printed pages. Like any worthy production.
Like when the audience reacts with silence as the curtain of a Broadway production begins to open. Most people never consider the miles of rope, pulleys, counterweights, and hands that make that moment possible.
And that’s fine. When something works smoothly, you don’t think about the machinery.
You just enjoy the show. Take Disney, for instance. They use just as much ink for animation as the do legal documents.
Disney is one of six entertainment companies that produce 90% of the media we see. Their productions and theme parks are built on many of the same principle as everyone from the newsroom to the rodeo grounds: what the public sees is only skipping along the surface of what’s actually happening.
On the first floor of Disneyland, you get the rides, the characters, the music, the illusion. Beneath your feet, there are operations most visitors never imagine.
There are hidden control centers. There are logistics systems. There are entire layers built for movement, timing, and problem-solving without interrupting the experience.
Disney is also scientifically brilliant. Earlier this year, the company filed patents for complex ride systems with articulating and pivoting mechanisms designed to change how vehicles sit relative to the track, helping create real-time illusion.
But despite the patent- pending high-tech controls, the tool that is often the primary determiner of whether the fireworks show goes off at night is not a million- dollar gadget.
As the sun begins to set, a single solid-white balloon sent into the sky ahead of the show. If the balloon is blown too far off course, no fireworks.
Nobody likes a canceled fireworks show, but those tough decisions keep from setting the park on fire.
We’ve received a lot of feedback from folks wondering why we haven’t made as many videos lately. We’ve heard questions about why we haven’t covered certain topics, posted as much content, or responded to the posts of others.
Some readers and viewers have expressed curiously, saying our presence lately is like a privacy fence with a sign that reads: “Under Construction.”
That’s probably true. We’ve had our head down so long it probably looks like we might be asleep. Not asleep, just quietly working while the balloon keeps leaving our office on a 45-degree angle.
Hot air is unpredictable like that. Although it does feel like the wind is starting to die down, and we have the curtain operator on standby.
I know some of you have been standing in line for a while, and patience hasn’t been a strength of Americans since the invention of the microwave oven.
But the popcorn is in buckets. The house lights are dimming. The music is playing.
Folks are finding their seats.
And the next episode of life in the DMC is about to find its way to the spotlight.