Clarissa Kell | Daily Press Delta Force participants Faith Murray, front, Dave Bosilovatz and Renee Richer write a story under deadline during the program’s visit to the Daily Press Thursday in Escanaba.

ESCANABA — The desks at the Daily Press were filled with novice journalists Thursday afternoon when participants in the Delta Force Leadership Program got a little taste of reporting during the program’s Media and Communications Day.

According to the Delta County Chamber of Commerce website, “The purpose of Delta Force is to introduce and orient new leaders to our community, identify individuals who have displayed strong tendency toward civic involvement and assist them in increasing their potential to become community leaders.”

During the visit to the Daily Press Thursday, 22 participants, as reporters on deadline, took part in a mock press conference presented by Daily Press Editor Brian Rowell.

Rowell took on the role of Howard Hoate, the CEO of a new brewery in Delta County specializing in the Fountain of Youth (FOY) lager that made people look and feel younger.

After the question and answer session, where the Delta Force class had to deal with Hoate dodging questions and elluding answers, the participants were asked to write a story about the press conference under deadline. They had 15 minutes to complete their stories.

“You will also have the distractions that a reporter on deadline normally does. They will get phone calls. You have to pick up the phone by the third ring — that’s policy here,” Rowell told the class.

During the 15 minutes the Delta Force participants had to write, they were bombarded with phone calls.

Some of the participants were told their articles would need to be longer to fill more space, and others were told that complications at the paper’s print shop meant they had to produce a story sooner than the original deadline.

When the time was up, the participants stopped writing and regrouped to discuss the overall experience and the reality of writing for a newspaper.

“What you went through here today is not that far off,” Rowell said. “It’s very, very common to have stories happen at the last minute — whether it’s a press conference or any other thing happening. Reporters are required to write literally that amount of space in a very, very short period of time.”

When Rowell asked the Delta Force members what they thought of the process of writing under a deadline, many voiced and nodded in agreement that it was a lot of pressure. One mentioning they were going to stick with their job of “numbers.”

Delta Force member Renee Richer described the experience as fantastic.

“I have a much greater appreciation for the Daily Press and writers in general, and the challenges they face,” she said.

Richer noted she had difficulty handling the pressure of the deadline while also dealing with other distractions.

Delta Force member Kari Rogers said the experience was interesting and fun to see the process of what goes into newspapers.

Jeff Sierpien, the Delta County airport manager, explained he deals with the media, especially one of the writers at the Daily Press in particular, and this experience taught him reporters have a tough but important job.

He noted with the airport, it is owned by the taxpayers of Delta County and they have every right to be updated and know what is going on — good or bad.

At the end, Rowell advised the Delta Force participants on how to interact with the press as community members with news to share. They were told to always provide contact information so a reporter can follow up, give the media enough time before an event, and give the journalist a press release, pamphlet or website so they have access to additional information.