Newsroom Yule Log 2010: Roasting typos on an open fake fire

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/12/2010 (5573 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I’m having a tough time concentrating on my job at the moment.

It’s not my fault. I’ll admit I’m one of those people who gets really worked up about Christmas every year, but that’s not the problem. No, the problem is the fire that’s burning outside my tiny office cubicle.

I’m not joking about this fire. It’s roaring away on the desk directly beside mine. It’s been doing that since Thursday morning and I’m finding it hard to ignore. So is everyone else in our office.

What I’m talking about here is the Free Press Newsroom Yule Log, which you, the festive newspaper reader, can see flickering live online for yourselves simply by going to our website.

This is not some phoney, computer-generated fire log; no, this is an actual artificial fire log that, thanks to a red light bulb and a bunch of spinning silver tinsel, produces “flames” that look almost real, provided you have consumed between eight and 12 beers.

There’s a digital camera pointed at it all day to ensure anyone in the world trapped in front of an office or home computer can go online and, instead of doing anything productive, roast their chestnuts by live-streaming video of a fake fire burning two metres from where I’m sitting.

I am obsessed with this yule log, and I’ll tell you about that in a minute, but first I need to explain how it got beside my desk in the first place. The masterminds behind the log are Wendy Sawatzky, this paper’s online content manager, and Tyler Walsh, our multimedia editor.

After reading countless stories about how Shaw TV briefly flirted with, then quickly backed away from, the idea of charging viewers to watch the crackling log they broadcast every December, Wendy and Tyler put their heads together, forming a single giant brain, and came up with the following holiday thought: “Hey, why don’t we get our very own cosy yule log?”

As it happens, Wendy had inherited an antique fire log that used to burn in the basement of her great-grandparents’ home. “I always turn it on when we have dinner parties,” she said. “It doesn’t throw any more heat than a light bulb, but it sure adds a lot of warmth to the room.”

So she brought it in, Tyler pointed a camera at it and — PRESTO! — a new holiday tradition was born.

I should warn you it is highly addictive. It is the crack cocaine of video yule logs. It’s addictive because when you call it up on your computer, you’re not just watching a glowing log, you’re also watching live video of random, slightly out-of-focus Free Press staff wandering aimlessly around a large chunk of the newsroom visible behind the fire log.

It’s incredibly entertaining. It’s the same kind of thrill you get when you watch CBC national news and the anchor is broadcasting live in front of the newsroom and you notice, in the background, a random employee, unaware they’re on camera, inserting a finger in their nostril. Ditto, the House of Commons.

In our office, some people go out of their way to avoid being seen on the yule cam, whereas others, such as myself, just can’t leave it alone, because some of us love to gild the lily, so to speak.

The other day, for example, instead of doing whatever it is they pay me to do, I spent most of the day crawling on the floor, just out of camera range, holding up random objects from my desk so they would appear to be standing in front of the cosy yule log.

These items include a tiny replica of the Statue of Liberty and a bobble-head doll that is supposed to be a Lee Jeans mascot, but looks more like a serial killer, and a stuffed penguin in a Santa hat.

I’m not the only addict. For instance, medical reporter Jen Skerritt, an actual award-winning journalist, bought marshmallows just so we could pretend to roast them over the fake fire.

Thousands of viewers have been logging on to watch this online. “Is that a marshmallow?” one viewer commented. “Fantastic!” another wrote, “Nothing like looking at a fake fire on the computer… all day!”

I even got an email from a woman in the federal Justice Department who confessed her colleagues couldn’t stop watching. “My office is hysterical with laughter,” she wrote. “Maybe a mug of hot cocoa warming by the fire would be a nice touch.”

My colleagues are pondering staging everything from mock pillow fights to light-sabre battles behind the fire, but Wendy says we need to show restraint and keep it to one goofy yule log activity per day.

And people think journalism is easy!

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca