It's the culmination of months of work, work that has intensified significantly over the past few weeks. All of the speeches, interviews, debates, commercials and other communications that you have been sifting through while covering political campaigns all come down to one night.

For newspaper journalists, there's a special excitement that comes with covering general election results. There's the incredible suspense, then the moment the numbers start coming and then the time to spring into action once a clear winner has emerged.

You talk to candidates who are elated, and others who are dejected. All of them, of course, are exhausted.

And you do it in a hurry-up mode. Results typically come in between 10 and 11 p.m., so there's not much time to track down sources, conduct interviews and write an interesting news article.

If you're a photographer, you're in constant motion on Election Day. You try to capture the feel of the polling places, stay on top of breaking news and then be there to get those unforgettable reaction shots when the outcome becomes clear.

If you're on the editing and page design of the equation, the energy is just as palpable. It's typically a paper with more important news stories and photos than any other time during the year, and you're putting all of it together in a tight time window.

Now I'll let you in on a little secret.

Before all of that adrenaline starts flowing, election night in the newsroom is often one of the most boring of the year.

That's because what we do for a bunch of those hours is wait. And wait. And wait.

Sure, reporters use their down-time prior to polls closing to line up where candidates will be, and perhaps get some of the background for their stories written. The copy editing desk starts putting together page designs ahead of time, as well.

But that work doesn't take more than a few hours. Many newsrooms, including ours, will get takeout food to share. Pizza is usually the choice. The television will be on a news channel, which can help pass some time.

The situation is a little different for TV news. Those reporters can do stand-up reports throughout the night from candidate parties, where excited supporters come on camera to talk about their hopes. But that kind of content doesn't really translate into a newspaper article that comes out the next day.

National news organizations might be scrambling throughout the night prior to polls closing because they have all kinds of exit poll data to study. But local newspapers covering local elections don't have massive budgets to spend money on exit polls.

We only report on the poll that matters - the actual election.

Executive editor Jeremy Boyer's column appears Tuesdays in

The Citizen and he can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 231

or jeremy.boyer@lee.net