By: Joe Strupp Because of what is being called a "massive computer problem" at The Indianapolis Star over the weekend, no Saturday breaking news or Saturday sports coverage was in the Sunday edition, according to the paper, which described the problem as a computer "storage issue."
The glitch resulted in numerous pages worth of news and advertising planned for the Sunday paper being left out and replaced by other content, said Managing Editor Pam Fine. She said the problem occurred after the paper's CCI Publishing System went down and content placed in it was not accessible.
"We wound up running a lot of wire we would ordinarily not run," Fine told E&P, citing as an example a Page One wire story on the Blackwater security firm and a Web story about a local congressional caucus that ran inside. "We also had a place holder for an enterprise piece that will now run on Tuesday."
Several stories from the Saturday edition were reprinted in the Sunday paper and a number of stories meant for the Sunday edition were not published until today. The Saturday Faith and Values page, for instance, was published again on Sunday, Fine said.
"Due to massive computer problems, several news stories planned for Sunday's newspaper did not appear this morning," a note published on Sunday and on the paper's Web site said. "The problems, related to computer storage issues, required us to reprint some stories from Saturday's newspaper, and leave out stories we had planned to publish.
"We apologize for the problems which we believe are now fixed. Local news and sports stories we had planned for Sunday's paper will be published in Monday's Star."
Fine said the newsroom received "several hundred calls" while her office got dozens of inquiries and the sports department received at least 100 calls and e-mails.
Editor Dennis Ryerson could not immediately be reached for comment Monday. But callers to his office were greeted with a voice mail recording about the problem. Ryerson's message had a recording of a staffer stating, "If you are calling about your newspaper on Sunday, we did have a huge computer glitch on Saturday?all current stories can be fund on Indystar.com."
Fine, meanwhile, left her own greeting on her voice mail that described it as "obviously a massive failure."
In a note on Monday's front page, Fine wrote:
"Because of massive computer problems Saturday night that prevented us from publishing several stories in Sunday's newspaper, we are running those stories today on Pages B4-5 in Metro & State and D6-7 in Sports.
"Our Sunday editions included several stories that first appeared in Saturday's paper and did not include the usual number of fresh news and sports stories you have come to expect. Although we placed a small note explaining the problem on the Sunday front page of our city edition, many of you received an earlier edition that did not include the note. We always endeavor to make sure we give you the latest and highest-quality news we can and regret that we weren?t able to do that as usual Sunday. Please accept our apologies."
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