The people's questionable paper
Edited in a room above a laundromat, and decided, on Thursdays, under scaffolding the city has agreed is permanent.
The Brooklyn Gazette is assembled by a board that meets late, under the landmark scaffold, which doubles as the conference room when the newsroom is full of damp laundry. Attendance is taken. The pigeon is always present. The minutes are improved by Ida Quill before anyone else can read them.
A story gets in by a short and unreliable method. Someone overhears it. Agnes Pell hears it a second time. Ida Quill removes the sentence in which the paper sounds impressed. What remains is the edition you are holding, or scrolling, which we count as the same thing.
Editor in Chief
Has held the chair since the paper still fit in a coat pocket. A thing becomes news when she has overheard it twice, from people who were not talking to her. She reads every story standing up, under the scaffold, and has never once described a piece as important.
Publisher
Signs the lease, then the checks. Keeps the price at 50¢ or one oat cortado and treats either payment as a moral victory he has not yet personally experienced.
Managing Editor
Keeps the standards, which are unwritten and strictly felt. Once held an edition because a sentence had thanked someone. The sentence did not survive.
Editorials
Writes the paper’s position on Thursday and a letter disagreeing with it before Friday. Both run. She calls this balance, and the board has stopped voting on it.
City Editor
Assigns stories by pointing out the newsroom window, which faces a laundromat and, if you lean, the scaffold. Pointed at a pigeon in March. He has pointed more carefully since.
Pictures
Directs the Department of Approximate Likenesses. Draws from memory. The memory is generous with cornices and unreliable about how many windows a building ought to have.
Member at Large
Attends every Thursday meeting, occupies the sill, and files nothing. Nonvoting, except when it walks the length of the radiator during budget, which the board has agreed to count.
Things That Never End
Senior correspondent for structures, permits, and anything that was supposed to come down in the spring.
In this editionWildlife Desk
Special correspondent. Files from the field, a category that this week includes foliage, jackets, and a brewery.
In this editionBorough Hall
Covers local government, including members who listen and at least one who is a bird.
In this editionTransit
In regular correspondence with the F train. The train has not written back, which he files as confirmation.
In this editionFood, regrettably
Expenses the coffee and then writes about the feeling. The feeling usually runs longer than the receipt.
In this editionProperty
Reads the listings so the rest of the borough does not have to climb six flights to see a sink.
In this editionCulture, such as it is
Listens to conversations on behalf of readers who would like to leave before the podcast comes up.
In this editionSidewalk Bureau
Embedded with pedestrian traffic. Has filed three notes from the same corner and considers this progress.
In this editionParks, from a bench
Reports the outdoors without photographing it, a policy the leaves have formally requested.
In this editionCopy
Believes a comma is a decision. Lost the argument over the scaffold story, kept the commas, and has described the outcome as a ceasefire.
Circulation
Leaves the edition in cafes that did not subscribe. Calls the practice distribution. The cafes call it Thursday.
Corrections
Mistakes are kept until they acquire the dignity of tradition. Readers who find one may leave it under the scaffold. If it is still there Friday, it will be considered.
Letters
Correspondence is accepted in person, under the landmark scaffolding, weather and pigeons permitting. The board reads what the block does not edit first.