1. Describe the importance of blogging to modern day journalism. Limit--one paragraph
Where citizen journalism used to be thumbed at by 'legitmate' journalists, today, they may have captured something that their more official big brothers and sisters couldn't. As newspapers continue to pander more to the hyper-local, bloggers can take it a step further. Without the tag of 'journalist', they can catch things in their immediately local surroundings that a journalist, with their intimidating title, may not.
2. If you are going to continue to blog, why? or why not?1 paragraph
Yes, I am, though not in this space. I anticipate when I move to my new job, I will have a sports column, and I plan to have a blog that is an extension of that. I look forward to being able to place myself in the story every now and then. I think it's a phenomenal way to capture the essence of community journalism.
3. If you were going to keep blogging, how will you change your blog in the future? 1 paragraph
I will, and really the venue would be the primary change. I imagine I'll have an official masthead to operate under, and obviously it would be significantly less about me, and more about the subjects I cover. It obviously will be more about the Rawlins sports scene, and I will definitely use a tone that beckons conversation.
Thanks, Dr. Clark.
If there was one thing I'd change about this class, and it would be minor because I had a great time, would be to offer more starting points. Remember at the beginning, when you said to read certain links? I loved being able to weigh in on those. Granted, those were right in my wheelhouse, but still. I think blogging, and in large part journalism, are at their best when they are a conversation.
4/28/11
I have a Question.
What's the best way to reach people that you believe would most likely be interested in your content?
4/26/11
People of America: It's Not Us, It's You
It's always nice to be regaled by the stories of a veteran journalist.
No one tells a story better than a storyteller who has mastered their craft. And few people have more stories to tell than someone who has done it for decades to make a living.
I had this privilege last week, but it wasn't all fun and games.
Last week, I was in a Q & A session with Dr. Sridhar Krisnaswami of SRM University in Chennai, India, a longtime foreign correspondent working in America for The Hindu. He told us in the audience about the success of Indian newspapers right now, The Hindu alone boasting a modest four million circulation.
Wait four million?! Stop the presses. Or run them. A lot.
I'm about to employed by a newspaper with around four thousand, three thousand in print, a figure I was pleased to hear.
But four million? As in 4,000,000?
It just seemed unrealistic. Or promising.
I had to ask Krisnaswami what the Indian secret was. Was it something they did? Was it something (else) in the water? How could a tried and true, red, white and blue rag harness some of that Indian success?
The answer was as discouraging as the potential solution was hopeful.
It's the literacy rate, he told me. The percentage of literate people has been on the rise in India, and with millions of people clamoring to exercise their new ability to dissect the written word, newspapers were front and center to provide the goods.
I never thought America's already firm grasp of reading the English language would be a blight to my chosen industry. Go figure.
It's almost as much a commentary on the direction of American society as much as it is one on the Indian newspaper industry. The people of India want to read, want to learn. Americans? We've been granted so many apparently unearned gifts that we no longer realize what we have.
We could catch up on world events, but instead the people of the world's most active seeker of global justice is more concerned with the affairs of a handful of neanderthals in a New Jersey townhouse. We could vote, we could paint, we could just about anything we damn well please, but having all that freedom is quite frankly too much work.
Really, America?
Not that you're listening.
4/14/11
Scripture with a Soundtrack
Writing, especially good writing, ain't easy.
Not that I've been too regularly associated with the latter, but even pedestrian writing is at least challenging.
Especially in a concealed, quiet office. When you're left with only your thoughts to keep your company, it's hard to reel them in. What were once segments of flowing prose are scrambled and useless.
Writing is rhythm, and silence doesn't have much of a beat.
Enter music. Giving writing a soundtrack gives it direction, it gives it pace and it gives it feel. A certain piece of information can be communicated in a variety of ways and still be the same information, and truthfully stated.
That being the case, a writer's own personal style can be greatly effected by the kind of music they choose to write to. A portion can be a ballad, moving slowly, but with grace. It can stop and smell the roses.
Or in this case, the Apple Blossoms.
A piece can abandon subtlety and barrel through a page like a freight train.
Clearly, I'm on an Esperanza Spalding kick. I can't help it. She's my age, she's beautiful, she's limitlessly talented, and she bested Bieber at the Grammy's.
Be still my heart. But not my writing.
Not that I've been too regularly associated with the latter, but even pedestrian writing is at least challenging.
Especially in a concealed, quiet office. When you're left with only your thoughts to keep your company, it's hard to reel them in. What were once segments of flowing prose are scrambled and useless.
Writing is rhythm, and silence doesn't have much of a beat.
Enter music. Giving writing a soundtrack gives it direction, it gives it pace and it gives it feel. A certain piece of information can be communicated in a variety of ways and still be the same information, and truthfully stated.
That being the case, a writer's own personal style can be greatly effected by the kind of music they choose to write to. A portion can be a ballad, moving slowly, but with grace. It can stop and smell the roses.
Or in this case, the Apple Blossoms.
A piece can abandon subtlety and barrel through a page like a freight train.
Clearly, I'm on an Esperanza Spalding kick. I can't help it. She's my age, she's beautiful, she's limitlessly talented, and she bested Bieber at the Grammy's.
Be still my heart. But not my writing.
3/31/11
Headin' West: Wyoming-Bound.
After a few weeks of searching, it would seem as though the quest for a job has concluded a success.
The last two days, an already promising lead heated up in a hurry. Yesterday morning I was told that Jerry Raehal, the publisher at the Daily Times in Rawlins Wyoming, was reaching out to the references listed on my resume after a successful phone interview the week prior (We spoke for more than an hour-and-a-half, and nearly half of it was simply shooting the breeze about the NBA. Turns out we're fans of rival teams, so this could be fun).
Just four hours after I was given the news that my references had been contacted, I was offered the position of sports reporter and editor at the Daily Times' one-man sports desk.
I discussed it with my wife, parents and brother, and all seemed in favor. This morning, I called Raehal, and told him Rawlins was the place for me.
So, that's it. In less than two months' time, myself, my wife, our cat and three dogs will be hopping on Kilpatrick turnpike to start the 912-mile journey to new life.
The last two days, an already promising lead heated up in a hurry. Yesterday morning I was told that Jerry Raehal, the publisher at the Daily Times in Rawlins Wyoming, was reaching out to the references listed on my resume after a successful phone interview the week prior (We spoke for more than an hour-and-a-half, and nearly half of it was simply shooting the breeze about the NBA. Turns out we're fans of rival teams, so this could be fun).
Just four hours after I was given the news that my references had been contacted, I was offered the position of sports reporter and editor at the Daily Times' one-man sports desk.
I discussed it with my wife, parents and brother, and all seemed in favor. This morning, I called Raehal, and told him Rawlins was the place for me.
So, that's it. In less than two months' time, myself, my wife, our cat and three dogs will be hopping on Kilpatrick turnpike to start the 912-mile journey to new life.
3/29/11
Socially Watching The Social Network
Well, that was fun.
It's a shame Michael Zuckerberg disputed the accuracy of his portrayal in "The Social Network". I'd have killed to be viewed as such a genius.
That being said, it sort of watered down the experience to learn that so much of the movie was only loosely based on actual events. It was a killer story.
I did hear a great piece of perspective from Zuckerberg himself regarding the motivation for "the facebook." He said that Hollywood can't help but dramatize a story because it can imagine so many things, but not what drives an imaginative person.
"Hollywood doesn't understand that sometimes, people just like building things," Zuckerberg said of his creation.
Hollywood, more specifically Aaron Sorkin, needed to make the genesis of Facebook about getting chicks, so to speak.
In any case, it was an interesting, if not documentary style, re-envisioning of Facebook's creation.
It's a shame Michael Zuckerberg disputed the accuracy of his portrayal in "The Social Network". I'd have killed to be viewed as such a genius.
That being said, it sort of watered down the experience to learn that so much of the movie was only loosely based on actual events. It was a killer story.
I did hear a great piece of perspective from Zuckerberg himself regarding the motivation for "the facebook." He said that Hollywood can't help but dramatize a story because it can imagine so many things, but not what drives an imaginative person.
"Hollywood doesn't understand that sometimes, people just like building things," Zuckerberg said of his creation.
Hollywood, more specifically Aaron Sorkin, needed to make the genesis of Facebook about getting chicks, so to speak.
In any case, it was an interesting, if not documentary style, re-envisioning of Facebook's creation.
3/8/11
Rattling Cages
There are simple things you learn in journalism. Important, fundamental things.
Paragraph early and often. Keep your lead under 25 words, and don't bury it. Know why it's "nine" and "10."
Then there are things that don't come from a textbook. Somewhere in the four-ish years of studying the rules and practices of good writing, editing, and interviewing, a journalist develops a certain ethical pride.
Putting intangible ideologies into practice is not the same as exercising proper journalism habits. As a staff writer, sports writer and eventually on the editing desk at The Vista, I practiced what I had been preached ad infinitum, but in Thursday's issue, I may have sailed my maiden voyage in the pot-stirring, anger-inducing fleet.
I published an editorial and a cartoon on page two of the March 3 Vista that decried UCOSA's inaccurate use of The Vista as a proponent of Proposition One, and also poked fun at UCOSA President Matt Blubaugh.
Thus far, I've yet to hear a retort or a complaint (the more likely route) from the UCOSA office, and in truth I've only been lauded for standing up to "the man."
To be fair, Blubaugh is not a bad person. He works hard, clearly knows the ins and outs of amateur politics, and seems to only make promises he can deliver.
His problem is he doesn't realize when other people know that he's trying to manipulate them. He takes liberty with facts, twists views and speaks in swift, difficult to understand bursts of words. He is an assault rifle; He works fast and efficient, which is all well and good until you're the target.
So, with most of The Vista and UCO360's staff on the fence regarding Proposition One (We would receive a small allowance of funds that weren't already reserved for athletics, after all), each and every one of us was pushed to the nay army when our names were put on a petition we didn't sign up for.
The best part: The measure failed by a meager 32 votes out of more than 2,400. UCO360's staff is in the ballpark of 40 members. Justice served.
So sure, a bridge may have been burned. But it's happened before. It will happen again. And doing so in order to shield one's ethics will always be the right decision.
Paragraph early and often. Keep your lead under 25 words, and don't bury it. Know why it's "nine" and "10."
Then there are things that don't come from a textbook. Somewhere in the four-ish years of studying the rules and practices of good writing, editing, and interviewing, a journalist develops a certain ethical pride.
Putting intangible ideologies into practice is not the same as exercising proper journalism habits. As a staff writer, sports writer and eventually on the editing desk at The Vista, I practiced what I had been preached ad infinitum, but in Thursday's issue, I may have sailed my maiden voyage in the pot-stirring, anger-inducing fleet.
I published an editorial and a cartoon on page two of the March 3 Vista that decried UCOSA's inaccurate use of The Vista as a proponent of Proposition One, and also poked fun at UCOSA President Matt Blubaugh.
Thus far, I've yet to hear a retort or a complaint (the more likely route) from the UCOSA office, and in truth I've only been lauded for standing up to "the man."
To be fair, Blubaugh is not a bad person. He works hard, clearly knows the ins and outs of amateur politics, and seems to only make promises he can deliver.
His problem is he doesn't realize when other people know that he's trying to manipulate them. He takes liberty with facts, twists views and speaks in swift, difficult to understand bursts of words. He is an assault rifle; He works fast and efficient, which is all well and good until you're the target.
So, with most of The Vista and UCO360's staff on the fence regarding Proposition One (We would receive a small allowance of funds that weren't already reserved for athletics, after all), each and every one of us was pushed to the nay army when our names were put on a petition we didn't sign up for.
The best part: The measure failed by a meager 32 votes out of more than 2,400. UCO360's staff is in the ballpark of 40 members. Justice served.
So sure, a bridge may have been burned. But it's happened before. It will happen again. And doing so in order to shield one's ethics will always be the right decision.
3/1/11
Damn, This Happens Fast
I've been at this journalism gig, either at internships or The Vista or in other mediums, for give or take three years now. That being the case, it's not every day that I experience something new.
Last week, that changed.
Thursday, February 24 was a big day for the fan of the National Basketball Association. It was the trade deadline. At two o'clock sharp, the paperwork for any and all trades that are to be made in the NBA's 2010-2011 season had to be on the commissioner's desk. Otherwise, no deal. This tends to spur a flurry of activity in a tiny time frame, with team brass swapping players like the very same glossed cards that grace their likeness in the hope of adding the final pieces needed to take their club to the promised land.
The Oklahoma City Thunder, the hometown team that I cover for a Toronto-based website called Hoops Addict (I seldom mention it for fear of being accused of making a fuss), wasn't expected to be a big player in the trade market. Thunder General Manager Sam Presti is a thinking man, a strategist whose favorite virtue would seem to be patience.
Still, for the sake of knowing, I was sitting at my desk in The Vista, sifting through news just to see if the Thunder would surprise anyone.
Guess what.
At approximately 1:59:30 p.m., the news came across the wire: the Thunder had acquired defensive specialist and rebound-hawking Kendrick Perkins, the six-foot-ten, 280-pound behemoth that had for the last eight seasons patrolled the frontcourt as the Boston Celtics' starting center.
The Thunder also acquired Celtics scoring spark plug Nate Robinson, and Bobcats big man Nazr Mohammed, but for the purpose of this particular post, that's neither here nor there. Suffice it to say that the move was a big one.
Digressing to the original point, I experienced something for the first time that day. Within two minutes, I saw the trade go over the wire, received an e-mail from my Toronto editor asking me to "hammer something out about the deal", and started doing exactly that.
Twenty-five or so minutes later, I had written almost 600 words about the trades and almost immediately afterward, it was published to the masses. I love calling myself a newspaperman, but wow. Print doesn't move that fast. Especially when I write for a twice-a-week collegiate publication.
It was easily the most thrilling experience from a deadline standpoint that I have ever had, and damn, it was fun.
1/25/11
Bloggers: Both Slayer and Savior?
First off, go read a newspaper. Better yet, buy one. I'll be right here.
Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed the feel of the flattened wood pulp in your hands and the distinct smell that wafts out from each opened page. I hope you got some ink on your fingers.
Truth be told, the days of the newspaper as a standard vehicle of journalism may well be numbered. Today it's all computers, tablets, phones and the like. Digital signals are winning a war of attrition to replace Linotype shelves and presses everywhere.
That being said, there might be a reason they're lining up to be on the right side of writing history.
Take, for example, a pair of bloggers on the vanguard of the blossoming industry's effort to rule the writing land.
Jared Eng, the 28-year-old writer of the extremely popular Just Jared. Eng's is a site that focuses exclusively on the lives of the rich and famous. But it's not just any fan site. A recent New York Times article chronicled just how successful Eng's blog has become. Personal, intimate access to Hollywood princes and debutants and a typically friendly (read: very little gossip) feel netted the site 3.3 million individual viewers in December. 3.3 million viewers for a five-man operation.
What happens when you combine millions of followers with the minimal overhead required by a blog?
“We’ve grown this into a real, viable business,” said Jason, Jared's oldest brother and the manager of the site's finances. “This year we’re easily going to gross seven figures.”
Meanwhile, Daniel Cavanaugh, 26, has been capturing the hyper local coverage that newspapers cling to as their last bastion to ward off the big scary internet since 2006. Cavanaugh's site covers the neighborhood of Gerritsen Beach, a 5,000-resident New York burrow southeast of Brooklyn that spans less than a mile in any direction, and reportedly gets more than 900 page hits per day.
Cavanaugh works with a degree of transparency that even newspapers will sometimes shy away from. He uses hidden cameras, never identifies himself as a reporter, and grants no port of harbor for "off the record" fliers. It's risky, and often dangerous, but readers soak it in.
He claims not to be a reporter, but really, Cavanaugh may be more of a reporter than most that dot the payrolls of newspapers around the country.
Thing is, the success of these blogsters and so many others like them may be more of a road map than a death knell.
Think, millions upon millions of readers gaining access in an instant. No more gathering today's news to tell the world tomorrow. Imagine if the New York Times or Chicago Tribune transitioned to an online-exclusive method. Say they had access to their already-present pool of readers, plus a few here and there that will access their publication now because of an enhanced online identity.
"But don't they already have that?"
Yes, and in some sense, that's the beauty of it; the infrastructure is already there.
"So why would this change anything?"
Here's an interesting little fact: The New York Times spends roughly $644 million per year on production and delivery costs. That's more than three times what the publication spends on salary and benefits for its writers, editors and so forth.
Say the Times were to take some of that freed-up capital and invest in a more attractive, more feature-rich online component, and absorb the rest as profit.
So, the Times, and for the sake of argument, any newspaper, could move to a system of online subscriptions and micro-transactions ($20 per month for unlimited access, or fifty cents for a given article or page). Yes, there would be growing pains, and the model would likely only see its greatest potential fulfilled if several, perhaps all, major papers adopted a similar model, but it could be the solution. It could even solve the age old issue of newspapers being forced to rely exclusively on ad revenue for sustenance.
So could the antidote for sick newspapers be found at the very same source as the poison? Could bloggers be using a shadow of the future model of journalism?
Newspapers today may not be struggling to survive the longest; they may be in a race to grow up the slowest.
Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed the feel of the flattened wood pulp in your hands and the distinct smell that wafts out from each opened page. I hope you got some ink on your fingers.
Truth be told, the days of the newspaper as a standard vehicle of journalism may well be numbered. Today it's all computers, tablets, phones and the like. Digital signals are winning a war of attrition to replace Linotype shelves and presses everywhere.
That being said, there might be a reason they're lining up to be on the right side of writing history.
Take, for example, a pair of bloggers on the vanguard of the blossoming industry's effort to rule the writing land.
Jared Eng, the 28-year-old writer of the extremely popular Just Jared. Eng's is a site that focuses exclusively on the lives of the rich and famous. But it's not just any fan site. A recent New York Times article chronicled just how successful Eng's blog has become. Personal, intimate access to Hollywood princes and debutants and a typically friendly (read: very little gossip) feel netted the site 3.3 million individual viewers in December. 3.3 million viewers for a five-man operation.
What happens when you combine millions of followers with the minimal overhead required by a blog?
“We’ve grown this into a real, viable business,” said Jason, Jared's oldest brother and the manager of the site's finances. “This year we’re easily going to gross seven figures.”
Meanwhile, Daniel Cavanaugh, 26, has been capturing the hyper local coverage that newspapers cling to as their last bastion to ward off the big scary internet since 2006. Cavanaugh's site covers the neighborhood of Gerritsen Beach, a 5,000-resident New York burrow southeast of Brooklyn that spans less than a mile in any direction, and reportedly gets more than 900 page hits per day.
Cavanaugh works with a degree of transparency that even newspapers will sometimes shy away from. He uses hidden cameras, never identifies himself as a reporter, and grants no port of harbor for "off the record" fliers. It's risky, and often dangerous, but readers soak it in.
He claims not to be a reporter, but really, Cavanaugh may be more of a reporter than most that dot the payrolls of newspapers around the country.
Thing is, the success of these blogsters and so many others like them may be more of a road map than a death knell.
Think, millions upon millions of readers gaining access in an instant. No more gathering today's news to tell the world tomorrow. Imagine if the New York Times or Chicago Tribune transitioned to an online-exclusive method. Say they had access to their already-present pool of readers, plus a few here and there that will access their publication now because of an enhanced online identity.
"But don't they already have that?"
Yes, and in some sense, that's the beauty of it; the infrastructure is already there.
"So why would this change anything?"
Here's an interesting little fact: The New York Times spends roughly $644 million per year on production and delivery costs. That's more than three times what the publication spends on salary and benefits for its writers, editors and so forth.
Say the Times were to take some of that freed-up capital and invest in a more attractive, more feature-rich online component, and absorb the rest as profit.
So, the Times, and for the sake of argument, any newspaper, could move to a system of online subscriptions and micro-transactions ($20 per month for unlimited access, or fifty cents for a given article or page). Yes, there would be growing pains, and the model would likely only see its greatest potential fulfilled if several, perhaps all, major papers adopted a similar model, but it could be the solution. It could even solve the age old issue of newspapers being forced to rely exclusively on ad revenue for sustenance.
So could the antidote for sick newspapers be found at the very same source as the poison? Could bloggers be using a shadow of the future model of journalism?
Newspapers today may not be struggling to survive the longest; they may be in a race to grow up the slowest.
Ailing Angelenos
I can't really tell what's worse.
The Los Angeles Times, a prestigious, if struggling, fixture of the journalism world has continued to offer exactly what it was tasked with offering. A once-in-a-lifetime storyline of mass misappropriation of California's already anemic budget was handled brilliantly. Every angle, from the misdeeds and wrongdoers to the collateral damage dealt to the everyman, was was covered with equal aplomb.
Resulting from the successful coverage is status as front-runner for a handful of Pulitzer awards, and continuing disdain from local readers.
In a recent New York Times article, one Edie Frère, a stationary store owner in the city’s Larchmont Village section, lamented the fall of the publication's once great socialite section.
“We need a paper that’s more, and this is less,” said Ms. Frère, 66. “I think it’s just not a world-class paper, no matter how you cut it. It used to be a world-class paper.”
Little did we all know that what separates a world-class paper is indeed not what happens in the world, but rather what happens in Lindsey Lohan's bedroom.
Frère is apparently not alone. Readership of the Los Angeles Times has plummeted at an even faster rate than what's expected of a major metropolitan newspaper. In the last decade, the Times' circulation, and in turn its staff, have been halved.
Again, I can't tell what's worse. That such a wonderful publication has had to survive through such staff-thinning and revenue-evaporating straights, or that its constituents, whose minds have apparently become as plastic as the rest of their husk-like bodies, haven't noticed.
The Los Angeles Times, a prestigious, if struggling, fixture of the journalism world has continued to offer exactly what it was tasked with offering. A once-in-a-lifetime storyline of mass misappropriation of California's already anemic budget was handled brilliantly. Every angle, from the misdeeds and wrongdoers to the collateral damage dealt to the everyman, was was covered with equal aplomb.
Resulting from the successful coverage is status as front-runner for a handful of Pulitzer awards, and continuing disdain from local readers.
In a recent New York Times article, one Edie Frère, a stationary store owner in the city’s Larchmont Village section, lamented the fall of the publication's once great socialite section.
“We need a paper that’s more, and this is less,” said Ms. Frère, 66. “I think it’s just not a world-class paper, no matter how you cut it. It used to be a world-class paper.”
Little did we all know that what separates a world-class paper is indeed not what happens in the world, but rather what happens in Lindsey Lohan's bedroom.
Frère is apparently not alone. Readership of the Los Angeles Times has plummeted at an even faster rate than what's expected of a major metropolitan newspaper. In the last decade, the Times' circulation, and in turn its staff, have been halved.
Again, I can't tell what's worse. That such a wonderful publication has had to survive through such staff-thinning and revenue-evaporating straights, or that its constituents, whose minds have apparently become as plastic as the rest of their husk-like bodies, haven't noticed.
1/24/11
On Editorializing
There is a shunned practice in news writing. Truly, there are several, but there is one in particular, the avoidance of which is among the most fundamental policies in the ethical reporter's cavern-thick rulebook. That forbidden practice is known as editorializing.
In essence, to editorialize is to insert oneself into the story.
"The City Council members submitted an insightful plan."
The plan was insightful? Says who, you?
A journalist is chronicler, not lecturer. A journalist leaves interpretation up to the reader. A journalist deals in transparency, not perspective. A journalist offers fact, not truth.
Much to the chagrin of this particular journalist, yours truly, who is charged with clinging to industry principles, editorializing is not just accepted in the blogosphere. It's commonplace. It's encouraged. Oh, what fun.
So what's a journalist to do? Years of conditioning have all but eliminated editorializing from reporters' bags of tricks while bloggers have instilled disdain in newsrooms for their freedom to wax opinion from one side of the mouth while enjoying food from reporters' plates in the other.
Personally, I figure it's time to get mine. Sure, sure, I'll still be Pavlov for my own staff, slowly stripping their writing of its opinion, but here, in this space, I'll deal in truths. I'll offer perspective. Maybe I'll have fun.
In essence, to editorialize is to insert oneself into the story.
"The City Council members submitted an insightful plan."
The plan was insightful? Says who, you?
A journalist is chronicler, not lecturer. A journalist leaves interpretation up to the reader. A journalist deals in transparency, not perspective. A journalist offers fact, not truth.
Much to the chagrin of this particular journalist, yours truly, who is charged with clinging to industry principles, editorializing is not just accepted in the blogosphere. It's commonplace. It's encouraged. Oh, what fun.
So what's a journalist to do? Years of conditioning have all but eliminated editorializing from reporters' bags of tricks while bloggers have instilled disdain in newsrooms for their freedom to wax opinion from one side of the mouth while enjoying food from reporters' plates in the other.
Personally, I figure it's time to get mine. Sure, sure, I'll still be Pavlov for my own staff, slowly stripping their writing of its opinion, but here, in this space, I'll deal in truths. I'll offer perspective. Maybe I'll have fun.
1/18/11
This is What We Do
The few, equipped with the sufficient abundance of both hubris and hutzpah, sacrifice the good life of the fret-free college student in favor of hours and days in a collegiate newsroom. The few who do too damn much for too damn little with only the hopes of standing out a nose more to an employer come judgement day. The few who listen to countless sources whose disdain for their newspaper often spills out in equal portion to the perspective they were sought to share in the first place.
It's my job to make that few do their job. And sometimes to make it harder.
Fact is, it's not easy to do what they do. Stress begets panic, panic begets hilarity, and boy, do they panic. What is easy is picking the parts of the day that err on the comedic side of tragedy and poking fun at them, or finding the heroism, or the frustration. That's what I do here, mostly at the expense of everyone but myself.
Any given deadline day, ads dance from page to page, stories come in late or just don't bother, and countless digital prayers in the form of text messages and e-mails go unanswered.
It's not a lazy day's work. It's not for the faint of heart. It steals hours upon hours of sleep. It ages you.
But something comes out of all that anguish. Herding a staff of so many intellectuals into the intimate confines of an editor's desk and dropping immense pressure on the group creates a trove of clever, angry and sometimes unabashedly honest nuggets that are beyond duplication. It's a twice-a-week experience that begs to be chronicled.
And so it shall be.
It's my job to make that few do their job. And sometimes to make it harder.
Fact is, it's not easy to do what they do. Stress begets panic, panic begets hilarity, and boy, do they panic. What is easy is picking the parts of the day that err on the comedic side of tragedy and poking fun at them, or finding the heroism, or the frustration. That's what I do here, mostly at the expense of everyone but myself.
Any given deadline day, ads dance from page to page, stories come in late or just don't bother, and countless digital prayers in the form of text messages and e-mails go unanswered.
It's not a lazy day's work. It's not for the faint of heart. It steals hours upon hours of sleep. It ages you.
But something comes out of all that anguish. Herding a staff of so many intellectuals into the intimate confines of an editor's desk and dropping immense pressure on the group creates a trove of clever, angry and sometimes unabashedly honest nuggets that are beyond duplication. It's a twice-a-week experience that begs to be chronicled.
And so it shall be.
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