Copy editor, New Jersey

The Clemens coverage wasn't bad. For those who are criticizing it, what would YOU have done differently?

 

Let me see if I get this correct: in the past month, 4 copy editors on staff have either quit or been fired. The sports editor has filled these positions by hiring one full-time writer who isn’t being asked to paginate?!?!

Another thing that caught my eye is that corporate director of news Matt DiRenzo is commuting daily from Connecticut to Trenton to lay out pages and do special sections for both JRC papers? Yet, this Bracy guy still has yet to lay out a page?! When I was there years ago, our sports editors would always stay late and lay out pages. And those sports editors all had assistant sports editors on staff and had departments 3 times as large as the current department Bracy is now supervising.

I’m starting to wonder a bit if Jelenic has mellowed. Jelenic used to be absurd with his demands for local coverage. I’ve been reading the paper for the past week or so and they really don’t cover that much any more. There was a time when covering three high school baseball games a day wouldn’t appease Jelenic. He’d pound his fist and demand more. Or one missing box score would be reason to fire someone. This year, it seems like they're lucky to cover one game a day and are missing results, and Jelenic is OK with this? From what I hear, the high school ice hockey coverage this year wasn’t all that much either. Now, I know the staff is down to something like 6 employees and that maybe it’s no longer feasible, but since when has Jelenic been reasonable? Maybe, he’s just so overjoyed that this Bracy guy has been able to reduce the staff tremendously and still get out a paper. But that would mean Jelenic’s somewhat reasonable. That was never the case in the past. The guy must have mellowed. I thought I read somewhere in here or elsewhere that he did have cancer. Maybe that’s why.

 

I just heard that Aaron is going to be reviving his "Media Guy" column that he used to write in Cherry Hill. Only now it is just going to be called "Me Guy" and will be all about how great he is.

 

What would I have changed about the Clemens pullout? Well, first I would have found some room, somewhere, for at least one staff story. You would think over 16 pages, someone could have cranked out something, even if it was just to call the mayor and county exec and get a fluff "this is great" story.

And just the look of it wasn't all that special. Maybe that's just me because I'm biased in general about the look of tabloids. I'm sure someone worked very hard on it, but to me, I wasn't impressed. Not even a little.

 

Yeah, that would have been fantastic.

 

It would have been nice if someone could have called Gary Matthews to see what he thought about Clemens pitching in Trenton.

 

Or maybe beg Jodie Mac to be on his radio show so he could talk about Clemens coming to the Thunder and then he could talk about how he's doing such a fine job as sports editor of the Trentonian. Since he's such good buddies with Jodie Mac, he could toot his own horn a little, just like he did when he first took the job and went on the air.

 

Tom -- Unless you are involved and in the shit, you have no idea what the fuck you are talking about, you fucking shit. I'm not saying that The Trentonian isn't the worst job in the United States. I'm not saying that JRC is any good. I'm not saying any of that. I just said that in my situation, you still deal with the usual bullshit, but it's a pretty decent place to work, all things considered. At least right now, we don't have to deal with resignations or people quitting en masse.
Don't tell me what to think and don't tell me you think you know what's up in my shop until you've been there. Until then, fuck you.

 

The name of the new assistant sports editor is ... http://jrcbites.blogspot.com/

Although that position has been filled, there are still a few openings at the Trentonian because of the recent termination and resignations.

 

Except, haha, his paper, the (Richmond County) Daily Journal, is not in Virginia, but in Rockingham, N.C., near the South Carolina border. That would be one hell of a commute from "his house in Virginia," as you wrote.

 

Thanks for the tip Frank! Correction has been made.

 

Priceless