Overtime pay

But EVERYBODY does it that way!!!!! EVERYWHERE!!!!!

 

How is coercing reporters to work 20 hours a week in overtime any different than Wal-Mart contractors forcing employees to work off the clock?

I know some of the responses. You don't enter journalism to make money, this is a profession, you do this for the public good, blah, blah, blah... yada, yada, yada.

Check some of the executive salaries in annual reports of media corporations and tell me it's not about money.

Does working work-a-holic hours gain you more or less respect from publishers and managing editors?

If journalists accept "that's just the way it is," can they be good journalists?

 

First question: No. But you won't get fired if you work nonstop. Most "beats" nowadays require posting even the most mundane news item as breaking news or a blog immediately. You can see how reporters are working around the clock. If the high school or pro team or university releases something on your day off, you post it or get fired. If you are told something newsworthy on your day off you post it or get fired. Basically it's a 24/7 job working at news organizations and that's why so many 20 somethings are quitting after a few months on the job. Too little pay for all those work hours.
Second question: Yes. Do the math. I would think news organizations have put all their NFL, MLB, NBA, college beat writers on salary because those people are working 80 or more hours a week with all the travel. They are not getting up at 3 a.m. to catch 6 a.m. flights because they want to.

 

George, there is the newspaper world Fredrick thinks he works in, and there is the newspaper industry that actually exists. The one that exists is low-paying and may not be the greatest, but the only reporters who routinely work 20 hours or more of overtime per week are the ones management wants to go home after 40 hours. Those are the ones who "hang out" in the newsroom and don't actually work during the hours they claim are overtime.

 

No doubt about it though I never have covered little league. Maybe shot a standalone photo, and got a score via someone calling it in. I think it's a joke that ESPN covers Little League softball and baseball, from qualifying tournaments to the national tournament. I don't hardly watch ESPN during August because of that. Worried about writing features for college football, NFL. I hate watching SportsCenter, having to view some cocky little 12-year-old pumping his chest or hearing that a coach screwed things up for Washington's softball team. It doesn't merit national coverage, in my opinnion. Somewhere along the line, governing bodies for softball pressured ESPN to balance the tables and cover softball because in the past, ESPN went to Williamsport for the boys Little League World Series only. The girl from Iowa, I believe, slammed down her bat after striking out, clinching Rhode Island a berth in the championship. Wow, great sportswomanship for the whole world to see. I quickly changed the channel after hearing the aforementioned B.S.

 

I never worked for five dollars per hour based on my,at most, 60-hour work week. Always got paid more than that. When you're a supervisor, you have to put in extra hours sometimes when staffers are sick, snowed in and can't make it to work, etc. Bottom line is newspaper companies micromanage news and sports departments, so they can have more money for Publisher, ME, HR person and, most importantly, advertising. Joke.

 

Cosmo, you must have never put together a football tab with a skeleton crew, where you, yourself and you had to accomplish that plus put out a paper five or six days a week. Always occurred at this time of year, obviously, prior to the start of high school/college football season. There definitely was some isolated times where I had to put in 8-10 hours per day, working seven days per week, but I didn't get into a habit of it for sure.

 

Apeman, Sounds like they're plotting ways to save money instead of standard reimbursement for you.

 

I can one up you. I once had a football tab to put together with a skeleton crew, and when it was done, we found out that ad department gave us the wrong sized dummies/pages, so we had to reconfigure the whole damn thing at the last second and missed deadline by an hour. We were absolved of the deadline miss in sports, of course.

I should have said no one CONSISTENTLY works 8-10 hours, 7 days a week. I have a week like that every year, usually in the football/basketball overlap in November. But it's never consistent. And if it gets that far, I get overtime.

 

You can one-up me? Are you competing against me on this thread? Ha. What's your point? I know we will disagree on everything because you obviously like soccer and I fucking hate the sport of soccer. My skeleton crew at papers in the 1990s was myself. One-person staff with no stringers. I've had the ad department fuck things up before like you said above and had to lay out the whole tab again. I've been doing this since 1988, so I've been through virtually everything once in this business. I'm in my 50s. How old are you? Just curious.

 

Cosmo, Did you work in the cut and paste era before pagination existed?

 

It's like you are bitching at me or something. Why don't you grow up.