Copy editor, New Jersey

Gee, what a surprise:

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/05/21/ap3742022.html

I cannot believe that Bob Jelenic has not been booted out by now, despite driving this company into the ground. Perhaps he needs to be treated like the poor schlubs at The Trentonian: Several warning letters in which he is called incompetent, then suspension without pay, then a letter he must sign which acknowledges his incompetence and spells out that, one more bad quarter, and he is history. That is the only fair way to do things - have the guy at the top treated just like the guys at the bottom. Of course, I'm fantasizing here.

 

Ohhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmm............ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......... excluding results from the Michigan cluster .............ohhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm..... excluding results from the Michigan cluster ......... ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......... bad weather in the springtime .............. ohmmmmmmmmmmm excluding results from the Michigan cluster ................. ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.........

Whose idea was it to buy the Michigan cluster (and pay about double its appraised price)?? :

Ohhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...........

 

Yeah it's all Michigan's fault. Those stupid people out there in the great lakes region.

As a side note, the Trentonian's Web site is horrible. Everytime you go to a new page there's a pop up, the same pop up. I haven't seen these types of pop ups since the late 90s

 

That's probably appropriate since the stories on the Web site are being posted from computers that run on another late 90s relic, Windows 98. Those Windows 98 computers are finally being slowly phased out for closer-to-modern computers and operating systems. However, JRC is so stupid that they have their entire NJ/Philly group of newspapers using the same, single server and an insufficient amount of bandwidth. These new computers often slow to a near-halt at all of the papers using them. On Friday, none of the NJ/Philly papers could use these new computers/systems or the internet -- except for one dial-up telephone modem that was given to one computer at each newspaper -- because the internet connection at JRC's home offices was down.

 

That sucks .... yes, exactly!

 

Word has it that within a year, JRC intends for all its papers (every single one) to convert over to the new customized, proprietary web-based page design system, supposedly for the following reasons:

1. All pagination work can be supervised, critiqued and graded by JRC personnel in Yardley, allowing for immediate rebuke, punishment, suspension or termination for any work judged unacceptable.

2. Pagination work can be further consolidated, thus cutting payroll. Any page designed for any JRC paper could be put in any other JRC paper. Mandatory company-wide collective redesigns will follow.

3. Unlike the previously-rumored switch to InDesign, mastering a proprietary custom layout system will be of no use for employees seeking to offer their skills to competing employers -- the only market for these employees would be other JRC papers using the same system -- thus putting a stopper on the constant talent drain of page designers out of the company. Employees will have no marketable skills, trapped working for JRC until such time as JRC decides to cut their throats.

4. Under the web-based system, if and when the central JRC server goes down (as it did Friday night, as it normally does about 3-4 times a month), no JRC paper will get a paper out that publication day.

Unless, of course, JRC pays for dramatic equipment upgrades, and hires sufficient competent personnel to keep the system operating without fail. Which, of course, it will not.

 

JRC henchman Matt DeRienzo comforts crybaby Bob.

Bob: Waaah.
Matt: There, there, Bob. It's not your fault. These diapers must have been made in Michigan.

 

What does Aaron have to say about all of this?

 

Aaron: Matt, can you turn down the volume on that baby. I can't concentrate on my putting.

 

According to today’s paper, The Trentonian has hired a full-time writer.

This must have been a final slap in the face to the employee who quit last week. The employee supposedly resigned because he was hired as a full-time writer, but as people started to quit and get fired and management elected not to replace their positions, this writer was converted to a copy editor. It started off as once or twice and week, but slowly became 3-4 times a week with each firing. Over the past month, it was five nights a week and he wasn’t allowed to go out and cover a professional sports team he was the beat reporter for.

Now, less than a week after this worker quits, the sports editor fills the spot with someone who he’s allowing to be a full-time writer and not have to work on the desk paginating. It was a villainous move and cheap shot to the groin to the old worker.

I must give the sports editor some credit, though, for this new hire. At least he had the decency to not hire someone from outside the area, someone without a clue as to the awful history behind all Journal Register Company papers. This worker has apparently worked for the other newspaper in the city and was a stringer for the Trentonian for a bunch of years. So, he knows full well what he’s getting into and must be fine with it. And, if what I’ve read before about how stringers get paid $35 a story and this was his only job for the past couple of years, this worker obviously doesn’t need the money.

It’s fine if someone agrees to work for The Trentonian when they are fully aware of what they are getting into. What’s not morally responsible is when management dupes an unsuspecting victim—some of which have families to provide for—to come to The Trentonian from another area of the United States, all the while pretending there are no problems with the paper and thus ruining someone’s life and career within months.

 

Correct me if I read this wrong, but according to the Trentonian's Web site, they're doing a 16-page special section on Roger Clemens' start for the Trenton Thunder. Is that true? A special section for a rehab start???? I never heard of such a thing, and I've been around minor league baseball a long time. Of course, it could be a resume-builder for somebody ...

 

I agree. A Roger Clemens pullout section might be a great resume builder for a young journalist or copy editor/page designer. That point doesn't matter, though, since the person who edited and layed out that pullout section is JRC corporate director of news, Matt DeRienzo. Besides being corporate director of news for JRC, he is acting editor at about a half dozen JRC newspapers, and also a news and sport paginator at the Trentonian. He'll spend an entire day at some New England newspaper, drive back to JRC's offices in Pennsylvania to give Bob his bottle and early evening burp, then drive to New Jersey to lay out or proof pages for either news, sports, or both.

This is JRC's idea of saving money. They won't replace a copy editor making $12 an hour, but they'll turn around and force their six-figure salaried director of corporate news to play the role of paginator. By the way, not one article in the 16-page section was written by a part-time or full-time employee of the Trentonian.