Writing in Advance

I remember an old episode of some TV news based sitcom, where the star was writing obituaries for people who weren't dead yet. The idea stuck in my mind for some reason. I'll bet newspapers still do that.

There are all kinds of news stories you can write in advance. For example, you could write a whole year's worth of coverage of the iPad 2 right now, and probably not have much to change when the actual device was released.

There are only a half dozen or so potential new features - one camera, two cameras, a faster CPU, a better screen, some extra ports - so it's not hard to write up generic descriptions of all of them and then just copy the ones that actually show up into your article later. And we already know what the sequence of articles will be.

For example:

Apple Announcement Coming on [Insert Date]. iPad 2?

Apple has scheduled a media event on [Insert Date] at the company's headquarters at One Infinite Loop ...

201102070716

iPad 2 Rumor Roundup

Apple's media event is tomorrow morning, so tonight lets have a look at the predictions for what they'll announce ...

Apple Announcement Liveblog

We're here bright and early this morning waiting for the doors to open ...

... they're playing [inset band name]. I wonder what that means ...

... I miss Steve ...

iPad 2 Hands On

After the media event we got a chance to play with the iPad 2 ourselves, and we're impressed! It's lighter than we expected, the screen looks beautiful, and the 2 cameras ...

iPad 2 Unboxing

As delivery trucks across the nation deliver the first iPad 2 boxes, unboxing photos are starting to come in ...

In-Depth Review of the iPad 2

[Most of this can be copied from our original iPad review]

iPad 2 Flaw

Now that consumers have started getting their hands on the iPad 2, not everyone is happy with the new device. Some users are reporting [insert flaw] and although the numbers are still small, some pundits are wondering if this is just the start of [Flaw]gate...