Recent content by BertoltBrecht

I should re-read my posts once I type them. I had just received my 1,000th angry mother call and it made me think of when it was that some of this garbage we cover became the focus of sports sections and Web sites. When parents decided it was OK to call us up and bench about how putting the...

I think their heart is in the right place with an online news Web site, but I want to drive and punch the HR person in the mouth over the "lousy pay" comment. I know it's nothing new and I know a lot of us make shirt money, but you don't have to rub it in our faces. They have a new idea, but...

Sorry if this has been asked before. I have a feeling this phenomenon is less than 20 years old. Can anyone trace this back to its origin?

If I wasn't such a shirt writer and terrible on deadline and tied down to the Northeast, I would send my resume and a kidney to get this gig. If Lance is half as good a sports editor as he is a person, the prospective hire at GP should consider himself lucky.

So wait, The Sports Network is a wire service? I thought it was an AP rewrite service.

You know what chili, you can give him the save.

Call the Red & Black, say, "I'm DisembodiedOwlHead, can you please scan and email me the 'Some forker' picture?" It's awkward, but there's your Grail.

I'm convinced the all-area team started the decline of our beloved industry. Random metro sports editor decides to make an all-area team. He/she commits sports writer to the job, assigning half-knowledgable writer the agonizing task of separating and rating mediocre players. Said writer does a...

It got so bad at this one shop I worked at, there were 16 players on the baseball all-area first team. Not counting the superlatives.

In college, I changed our library cutline from "Joe Smith overcame illness..." to "Joe Smith overcame syphillis..." No regrets. Also no mistakes. And to add to the thread, I've seen that error on the managing editor's window at the Red & Black, University of Georgia's paper. Maybe you could...

Yeah I know Notepad, rule No. 1 in journalism.

I accidently let it slip, second gig didn't balk — I think they just want something in. I'll avoid the situation in the future.

One saving grace may be they are slightly different assignments. One is two straight gamers — the other is two online updates and a long wrap of the series. But I get what you're saying slappy — though I don't think they won't mind for a fringe playoff game — it's probably best to avoid...

It's kind of a freak gig. But sending the same story seems ethically wrong — though, if someone from another paper asked to use my story, I don't think I'd have a problem with it.

I've accepted an assignment to cover a few baseball games for a sister paper and a paper about 50 miles away from the sister paper. Signing the standard freelance agreement, I was wondering how best to handle this. Should I give the same story, two semi-different stories — with different ledes...