As a former newspaper editor, I loved and hated the weeks before and after the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years holidays. Employees at government offices and corporations headed out of town for the holidays and with them went our news stories. Instead of the flood of people wanting coverage for their events, we were left with more of a leaky faucet that barely drip-drip-dripped onto our editorial calendar.

On one hand, it gave me time to dust off those promising story ideas I had to shelve because more important news took precedent over them. It also gave me the opportunity to seek out new story ideas for the coming year and do some advance planning while things were still slow.

On the other hand, these slow news days made us desperate for news. Was there a construction worker with a backhoe digging up a busted pipe? Front page news! First baby of the year? Front page story with a big photo (even though it was pretty much the same news story every year).

The holidays are the perfect opportunity for public relations professionals to pitch stories to bored reporters who are desperately looking for some interesting news. The chances of your story seeing newsprint are much greater because you’re competing with fewer newsworthy events.

Colleges should plan ahead to make the most out of these slow news days. Have a culinary program? Can you get a few volunteers to answer a turkey-emergency hotline on Thanksgiving Day? Or maybe you’ve got an automotive program, and you can repair a needy family’s car just in time for Christmas. Invite the media out when you return the fixed-up car to the family.

Planning events like these will help you get your name out in the community and give reporters something to fill their broadcasts and news pages with during the slow holiday season. It also gives you a chance to build a relationship with the reporter, which might just give you the edge against other stories when the newsroom gets busy again.