Newsrooms are especially exciting places during big news events, including Tuesday night’s Democratic Party caucuses. And because we planned our coverage in advance, we avoided much of the chaos that happens when big but unexpected news breaks.

Reporters and photographers were prepositioned statewide at what we decided would be busy caucus sites. Reports were phoned into rewrite men like reporter Dan Nakaso and City Editor Fernando Pizarro, who compiled roundup stories. Seth Jones moved his photographers when he got word that crowds were especially big at other sites.

The Democratic Party gave the media the full vote count at 12:50 a.m. Wednesday, long past our usually deadline, but we held the Home edition late so that just about everyone on O’ahu got that final count in their Wednesday morning paper. (Neighbor Island copies had to go earlier in order to catch the last flights to each island out of Honolulu International.)

I have been in the newsroom on many election nights and getting full results before 1 a.m. was an unexpected but delightful treat.

Sometimes things don’t go as planned: A quarter page graphic that would have shown vote totals for the candidates from all 51 state House districts could not be used in Wednesday’s paper because the Democrats did not break down the vote totals by state district. We got those numbers Wednesday and that chart appears in Thursday’s paper and online edition.

And while some people were focused on getting the paper out, others were feeding the Web site with up-to-the minute stories, pictures and results. Many people in the newsroom toggled back and forth between the two media, feeding both beasts.

Our Web site got an enormous number of hits during a time of the day when traffic is usually relatively slow. Many people logged on after voting to check the results and then added their comments to our online forum or sent e-mails that appear on Thursday’s letters to the editor page.

Big news is always stressful because you push to get as much in as possible online as quickly as you can. And when the news is not fully resolved, you are trying to get the latest possible news in the paper before sending it to the pressroom. And when it goes well, as it did Tuesday night, you go home feeling great.

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You may have noticed that lately the bylines on most of our local stories simply say “Advertiser Staff.” That's because the majority of our reporters and photographers have asked that their names not be used in bylines and photo credits in the paper or online on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

The “byline strike” is designed to focus attention on a contract dispute between unions representing Advertiser workers and The Advertiser’s management. Byline strikes have occurred during past labor disputes and in other circumstances.

I think that everyone in the newsroom hopes that the contract differences can be resolved soon and as amiably as possible.