An Open Plea to Sports Departments to Let News Side Enjoy Their Election Night Pizza in Peace
By Kyle Koster
Stakes couldn't be higher for this election, which begins tomorrow and has a tail that will carry through until, well, probably for some time. But this isn't a political blog. It's a pizza blog with attention and tastebuds tuned to the flavor of cheese and pepperoni.
Since the invention of agate and nutgrafs, newsrooms have secured election-night slices for employees burning the primetime and sometimes midnight oil tabulating and contextualizing the results. Reporters, editors, and page designers alike have developed an almost Pavlovian response to people engaging with the democratic process.
That's right. Once every 365 or 730 days, the news side of the newsroom works with fingers greasy from free pizza on cheap plates. This is greeted with the type of derision that only the crankiest, most cynical, and salty of sports department lifers can muster. Because, you see, working on a tight deadline amid a flurry of late-breaking news is something they do every night. Something they've done every night since 1983 in some cases. Or longer.
Speaking broadly, there is no more judgmental group than high school girls. Newspaper sports guys are a close second. Both, coincidentally, love nothing more than talking behind each other's backs. Though one group usually cares deeply about fashion and the other, well, doesn't.
Newsrooms, for now, still exist and will be staffed by humans tomorrow night. And as reliable as election night pizza tweets are, so too are the sometimes voiced, oftentimes stewed upon blowback from the proverbial toy department.
To that I say, in the spirit of what could be the last remaining recognizably "normal" day in a long time, how about a detente this year, sports guys? How about letting the metro desk stuff a moderately-priced thin crust in his cheeks with some peace? Let them have their thing for this one time because you'd almost forgotten how much you pretended to care the last time?
In this year, of all years, they need a break. And a few extra slices without judgement.