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The Metropolitan Police Department investigated a bomb threat near the perimeter of GW’s campus Friday morning, shutting down K Street between 20th and 22nd Streets for more than an hour.

Officers from MPD’s Second District responded at about 9:45 a.m. after a pedestrian reported seeing a suspicious male place a package in a newspaper box on the corner of 21st and K Streets, MPD Lieutenant Gary Fitzgerald said.

“This is IMF weekend and the IMF building is nearby,” Fitzgerald said. “Those circumstances gave credence to this call.”

Though MPD did not evacuate the office buildings and shops that line K Street, which is infamous for its concentration of powerful Washington lobbying firms, police did halt pedestrian and street traffic while MPD’s explosive ordinance unit investigated the bomb.

“The package didn’t contain anything dangerous and the closures were precautionary. We didn’t want anyone getting hurt but us,” said Fitzgerald, adding that MPD investigates about 700 to 800 serious bomb threats a year.

A majority of the articles you read on the front page of yesterday’s Hatchet were articles written “on deadline,” a skill journalists can only learn to cultivate by repeatedly performing the task. For a green journalist, the idea of writing on deadline often seems daunting, the pressure of having a matter of hours, or even a matter of minutes to report, write and edit an article just, too much. But for journalists with a bit more experience, writing on deadline can easily become addictive – knowing you were the first person to report on an important story is satisfying. Writing on deadline is a skill you simply cannot learn without practice, and any Hatchet reporter who has written for us on deadline is more prepared for a career in journalism, or even an internship, because of his or her experience. I know I am. Though the average reader likely would not realize, many Hatchet front pages include articles written on deadline as these are the significant, timely newsworthy stories that necessitate being written and published immediately.

Last Wednesday afternoon, Assistant News Editor Alexa Millinger wrote a story on deadline about a life-saver. Law student Jason Coates rescued Washington Post columnist Mike Wise from an icy Georgetown canal after Wise jumped in the canal to save his dog, but could not get out of the water himself. For those of you that picked up the paper on your way to a morning class, not 24 hours had passed from when Alexa made her first call to start reporting on that story to when you ready it in print. As the paper’s metro news editor, Eric Roper writes on deadline often. He wrote not one, but two articles on deadline for yesterday’s front page. Eric’s story on the D.C. Council and its decision regarding a bill that would require all District businesses to offer paid sick leave to part time employees was actually re-written on deadline. By Wednesday afternoon, the facts of the story had changed from the initial reporting Eric did the previous day. The fourth front page story written on deadline for Thursday’s front page was on student celebrations of Super Tuesday events. Since Super Tuesday became super really early Wednesday morning after midnight, Hatchet Staff Writer Danielle Meister could not help but write her article on deadline on Wednesday, also. When you pick up Monday’s paper, see if you can tell which articles necessitated last-minute write-ups.

Today’s front page features an interesting story about a workers rights bill opposed by the University, but strongly supported by District community members. If passed by the D.C. Council at a highly anticipated meeting Tuesday, the measure would require all D.C. businesses to offer their part-time employees paid sick leave, a luxury many part-time workers do not enjoy.

The University said it supports the spirit of the bill, but does not support it in practice; most of the University’s part-time employees are students whom University officials do not believe need or should be eligible for paid sick leave. Proponents of the bill say part-time student employees deserve paid sick leave as much as any other part-time employee.

Are you a part-time student at GW? Do you feel you deserve paid sick leave? Are you a student that does not work who thinks the idea of paid sick leave for students is absurd?
Be sure to check back for details on the outcome of Tuesday’s D.C. Council meeting.

Many GW Hatchet readers have little to no idea what transpires when news goes from a story idea into a published article; luckily we’re going to use this blog to help fill in the blanks.

Myself and other contributing bloggers will now work to fill in the details, explore new angles and provide all the information on any given news story that does not make its way into the newspaper. In addition, this blog will serve as a teaser, a place to look first when you want to know what big stories you will read in The Hatchet in our upcoming issues.

Check back on Wednesday for an inside look at one of our front page stories.