From Ultima Thule to You, It’s Destinations That Mean Mission Success
Bob Melamud likes to be the man behind the story, his hand revealed only by a reliably regular byline in Bay Weekly. Now, I’ll tell you a secret about him. He spent most of his career as an aerospace engineer. So when the NASA press release popped up in my email inbox early last November, I reckoned that Bob’s perfect story had come along.
“NASA Announces Media Activities for New Horizons’ New Year’s Kuiper Belt Flyby,” read its headline.
The body of the text explained what those coded words meant:
“NASA is inviting media to cover the farthest spacecraft flyby in history on Jan. 1, 2019, when the agency’s New Horizons spacecraft encounters the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule …”
What it meant for Bob was that if he was free New Year’s Day (and New Year’s Eve, as it turned out), he’d get his closest ever connection to deep space.
What it meant for you, me and all Bay Weekly readers was riding along on Bob’s deep-space high.
As I expected, he signed on. So there he was on January 1, sharing the “very dramatic moment in the auditorium, watching the video feed from the control room, as the data slowly arrived and the various subsystems were declared green.”
Bob saw the report of that close encounter firsthand. But good reporter that he is, he deemed that not close enough. So he dug a little deeper, making contact with space scientist Sarah Hamilton. Formerly of Annapolis and now living in Crofton, Hamilton taught New Horizons the commands it needed to do its deep-space job.
This week you’ll read the story, sharing Hamilton’s thrill of success when, as she knew only too well, failure was just as likely.
Many a Bay Weekly story follows a similar path. In the darkness of the great unknown, a light goes on. Sometimes, I’m the one to see the light, sometimes it’s one or another Bay Weekly staffer. In those cases, I’ll look for the right writer to write the story. Ideally, that writer will, like Bob with New Horizons, have just the right qualifications of experience and temperament to see the filament of a story in that flicker.
Other times, it’s a would-be writer who sees the light of a story, then shines it my way in hopes my imagination will be illuminated.
From that glimmer of light, a story begins to evolve until, through research, experience, reflection and writing, its writer delivers it to me for the editing that will make the story perfect.
Next, every story makes its way to our page editor Alex Knoll, who judges it just right or nips and tucks unwieldy pieces into order, then gives it visual life on the page. Then that story and all its weekly companions make an electronic journey to Delaware, 20,000 revolutions through the press, folding, stacking and returning to Bay Weekly. Come Thursday morning, our drivers gather their many bundles of papers and set out on the road to deliver them to 600 partner stops and shops from Severna Park to Solomons — thence to you.
Finally, our stories are a little like New Horizons. They zoom around a lot along their way, but they only get their job done when they reach their destination. What Pluto and Ultima Thule are for New Horizons, you are for a Bay Weekly story. Every story is looking for a reader. Every Bay Weekly story is fulfilled in your eyes and mind.
I hope this week’s stories do their job and bring you pleasure.
Next week, in our annual midwinter Dining Guide, Bay Weekly partner restaurateurs give you behind-the-scenes tours and recommendations on what they like best on their own menus. No reservations required.