Generally, word count can indicate the depth of reporting you have to do on a given subject, which in turn can indicate how much time you’ll spend on that reporting.

This is not always true.

I already knew this, in a way: when I was freelancing for Maryland Matters, my research for a given article could take a day or a couple of weeks, depending on the subject. But sometimes, even for the least-involved of articles – say, a 2-3 graf brief – the amount of time invested can balloon.

Take this most recent example: I was tasked with writing a brief on Columbia’s weather the next day. The editor who assigned it to me anticipated I’d run into issues, because of the complexity of the National Weather Service’s web site. She was right.

Not counting interruptions from class and meetings, writing this brief on the temperature took me hours. I had to find temperature extreme charts, averages, and trends to make sure that the high temperature of that day was or was not unusual.

Then, I had to tie it to drought figures, and see whether or not the current drought was going to be alleviated this month.

Navigating the U.S. Drought Monitor site and the NWS’s byzantine layout turned what could have been a one hour story at max into a slog. Another learning experience, I guess.