What follows is a faithful account of the production of Issue 6 (taking place the evening of Feb. 29/early morning of March 1) as witnessed by me, The Pioneer’s Managing Editor.

4:49 p.m. Arrive in Pio office. Check email: Thirteen new messages, eight from Editor-in-Chief Tricia Vanderbilt. Respond to Tricia via email rather than talking to her (even though she’s a mere 10 feet away from me).

4:56 p.m. Add new staffers to Pio staff listserv.

5 p.m. News Editor Shelly Le arrives boasting her new $5 pants. They’re very East Coast prep school; she should be on a yacht.

5:02 p.m. Write corrections to Issue 5, email them to News PA Sean McNulty.

5:15 p.m. Head downstairs for dinner: Fire & Spice Taste of Sicily with garlic bread and Dr. Pepper (caffeine!).

5:23 p.m. Help Feature Editors Alyssa Fairbanks and Kelsey Kennedy write headlines.

5:39 p.m. Senior Reporter and EIC-elect Rachel Alexander hollers at me from across the table to help her rephrase a sentence in this week’s Board Editorial.

5:54 p.m. News Editor Karah Kemmerly and I jokingly (?) plot the Pio’s next venture, a tabloid rumor rag. Key pieces to include: What members of the Whitman Administration buy at Safeway; Making up and breaking up couples; etc.

6:03 p.m. Discourage Sports Editor Libby Arnosti from running a headline starting, “Men’s tennis gets off . . . ”

6:16 p.m. Remember that I’ve been meaning to “liveblog” a production night. Commence this post.

6:18 p.m. Eavesdrop on Rachel and Tricia discussing Rachel’s most recent changes to her investigative feature piece on rape at Whitman.

6:22 p.m. A&E Editor Caitlin Hardee, on top of everything as always, reports to me that she’s written headlines and captions, scheduled her content to publish on web and is ready to write her front page teaser.

6:31 p.m. Rachel asks me if she should get curly fries. I say I don’t know. Apparently, I’m supposed to know these things.

6:35 p.m. Receive an email from Web Editor Sara Rasmussen warning me that she’ll be in later than usual tonight. It commences “Cdawg” and ends “Meow!” We’ve been like this since we first worked together as copy editors two years ago.

6:44 p.m. Photography Editor Ethan Parrish struts in, sporting his usual fedora and a dashing argyle sweater vest.

6:47 p.m. About to edit Board Editorial with Tricia. She gets distracted by the Opinion section. I ask Ethan if he’s cut his hair recently. He hasn’t, but his hair is in a headband under a hat and thus appears shorter. I am astute. This leads to a discussion about noticing minute changes in people’s appearances (something my father fails at) which in turn leads to me telling stories about my dad forgetting birthdays. Ethan then tells an excellent story in which his father gives his mother flowers on Ethan’s birthday having confused it’s date with that of their wedding anniversary.

7:01 p.m. Tag-team Board Editorial editing begins in earnest.

7:22 p.m. Shelly interrupts the tag-team editing sesh, inquiring over the state of the ASWC meeting minutes.

7:34 p.m. Opinion Editor Alex Brott interrupts, reporting that he’s done with his page.

7:56 p.m. Tag-team Board Editorial editing round one finished.

8:01 p.m. Illustration Editor Binta Loos-Diallo arrives with snacks! Nom nom nom.

8:02 p.m. Copy Editors Aleida Fernandez and Marisa Ikert sneak in, ask which sections are ready for their perusal.

8:04 p.m. Chief Copy Editor Jean Marie Dreyer arrives with fresh-baked mini apple pie in hand, inciting everyone’s jealousy. It’s still warm.

8:14 p.m. Ethan expresses plans to bleach and dye his mustache pink tomorrow in addition to putting his hair in cornrows. I demand photo updates.

8:16 p.m. I find a Southwest Airlines magazine with a feature story on babies. Lots of “awwwws” ensue as I show cute photos to our estrogen-dominated staff.

8:20 p.m. Tricia makes me call Web Content Editor Josh Goodman to ask when he’s coming in tonight (read: to make sure he’s coming in tonight).

8:31 p.m. A ghost of sophomore year shenanigans arrives unannounced in the office to work on a project with Rachel. Tricia and I giggle in the back office.

8:32 p.m. Tag-team editing of the rape article commences.

9:39 p.m. Rachel expresses concerns over the results of tag-team Board Editorial round one edits.

9:48 p.m. “Hey Kitten!” (Sara has arrived.)

9:55 p.m. Rachel and Tricia edit the Board Editorial some more, while I work on updating this post.

10 p.m. Jean Marie asks my opinion about a stylistic precision on the rape article. Rachel eats some lettuce.

10:06 p.m. Production Manager Ted Hendershot paces around the office, talking to no one in particular about how on track we are with layout.

10:13 p.m. Sara cracks open a bottle of Coke. She and Karah discuss after-school specials v. afternoon delight . . .

10:21 p.m. Shelly and I add new staffers to the masthead. I look over inside news headlines.

10:28 p.m. Rachel finds a hair in her lettuce, continues to munch away (extra protein!).

10:34 p.m. CRISIS: The Pio website is down. Sara calls Webmaster Kirk Crosland to troubleshoot. I’m now blogging in Word.

10:39 p.m. I check Facebook, watch a youtube video of Sophia Grace and Rosie having tea with Taylor Swift.

10:41 p.m. Josh arrives wearing “Roary,” his genderqueer lion hat, a gift Rachel got him while studying abroad in Ecuador last fall.

10:47 p.m. Rachel finds another hair in her lettuce.

10:56 p.m. Jean Marie scans whitmanencounters.com.

11:03 p.m. Josh engages Shelly in a highly theoretical conversation about the book they’re reading for a mutual politics class. They resolve to sit next to each other next class.

11:10 p.m. Rachel sends me the rape article in a Word doc via email so we can text replace in InDesign. She also sends me her resume, unsolicited.

11:21 p.m. Shelly writes a teaser for her article on the recent increase in the ASWC student fee.

11:26 p.m. Ted expresses his heart’s desire to PDF at 12:01 a.m., probably jinxing our chances of doing so.

11:30 p.m. Jean Marie, Marisa and I debate whether to use “5th” or “fifth” in a teaser. “Fifth” eventually wins.

11:34 p.m. Tricia edits inside news, Jean Marie copy edits the front page.

11:44 p.m. I catch last-minute AP style and formatting errors in Sports.

11:47 p.m. “You can bring knitting needles on a plane.” –– Rachel. “I know” –– Karah (with crazy eyes).

11:48 p.m. C/Kara(h) officially pitches the tabloid project to Tricia as an alternative to Issue 3 of The Circuit. We are not met with much enthusiasm.

11:53 p.m. The fifth addition is made to the quote board for the evening.

11:55 p.m. Tricia, Ted and I edit the front-page blurb.

12:01 a.m. Tricia, Rachel, Shelly, Karah and I work on the inside news rape article jump headline.

12:10 a.m. Ted begins PDFing.

12:24 a.m. Headlines and other page elements disappear as Tricia tries to PDF inside news.

12:29 a.m. Rachel babbles about “Chester” the temperamental (but parasite-free!) adolescent dragon in her stomach.

12:45 a.m. Ted and Rachel enact WFR scenarios.

12:49 a.m. A&E perpetually PDFs as a blank page. After multiple attempts we realize we have continuously exported the wrong page range.

12:56 a.m. ALL SECTIONS PDFed and sent to the UB via cyberduck.