Beware, Trentonian offering jobs that don't exist

Don't know if he knows about this site or not. I could make him aware of this thread very easily since I used to work with him. But since at least least two people who work in the Trenontian sports department are posting on this thread I'm not going to tell Aaron about it, unless said employees let me know they don't mind my telling Aaron about this thread.

 

The issue, Frank, is that people's jobs are on the line.

This is not a case of having the title and letting the executive sports editor run the show. Did these midsized metros with writing sports editors have a vice president setting up a three-person proofing system and put such an emphasis on not making mistakes that it is OK to blow deadline by two hours? Did they have a desk of 3 people putting out 18-20 pages?

 

Frank, excellent points. But isn't the ASE job still open? And, assuming what others have posted here is accurate, isn't missing deadlines by an extreme amount a problem? Without an ASE and with your staff missing deadline by allegedly more than an hour, wouldn't the wise decision be to chill on the writing? The Camelot version of any sports department would include a large enough staff for your schmoozing theory to work. When you don't have a second in command and deadlines are missed, and missed by a large margin, how can you honestly justify schmoozing?

 

Actually, I didn't bring it up, but so what?

And it's not really a newspaper history. It doesn't get into the story of how TWU guys started the Trentonian as a strike paper or Emil Slaboda's long, proud tenure or winning the Pulitzer or kicking the WaPo out of Trenton. It's a commentary on the sorry state of newspapers in general and bean-counters/sales whores like Bob Jelenic and Dave Bonfield in particular.

 

Despite a few of the tangents this thread has taken, I think it's an important thread for anyone in the business to see, especially the higher-ups. A lot of voices here saying what needs to be said.

 

I am told no one has interviewed for the job.

Re: the deadline situation, apparently the entire Shore run is being returned every night. That's 3,500 papers that are never making it to stores.

 

I wouldn't call that a huge workload. A challenging one, yes, but they are tabloid pages, a lot smaller and more simple than broadsheet pages. Basically, about 18-21 regular-size columns of space per editor with, to my knowledge, pretty basic layouts, nothing intricate and pretty basic stories, nothing investigative that requires hours of editing. Lots of people do that much, the only significant difference being that elsewhere, each line of agate isn't being dissected by the CEO. You could have a desk of 15 with the SE chained to it seven nights per week, and still it would be impossible to achieve perfection or to predict what's going to set off the madman this time. So the problem really is not manpower or the SE, but ridiculous expectations. And there really is no way around that.

 

Man, I put out anywhere between 12 and 16 pages a week by myself. It just takes someone with, as Raftery would blurt, ONIONS! Jeezum, get a guy in there who will make deadline.

 

Frank, each member of the sports desk is putting out more pages than the entire news desk. They've gotten rid of most of the part-timers, too. You see the thread on the main board about taking calls from softball coaches at 10 p.m.? How about taking those calls while doing your 6-7 pages a night?

The real problem is that Jelenic finally found a sports editor who is a perfect extension of himself.

 

Man, I had no idea there could be so much disdain for one person. This is crazy.

 

Stanley Woodward's musings have limited relevance to today's sports department. (I know that's going to go over like a lead balloon; he was a great SE for his time, but...)

A sports editor can do three things. He can be the department administrator. He can work desk. He can write.

He can do only two of those effectively. And one of those two is pretty much decided for him.

Yes, an SE can write. But in many cases, he doesn't have that luxury, either.

 

Except for the technology, I think Woodward's points hold up pretty much. Specifically, what do you take issue with? Have you read the book or are you just assuming it's outdated because it was written a long time ago? Because I have to say, the guy who turned me on to it in 1989 knows his stuff, and I've loaned the book to probably a half-dozen pretty good sports guys over the years, and everyone thought it was brilliant and still accurate, although one guy thought Woodward was too impressed with himself (didn't like the tone but thought it was gospel). It's a logical assumption if you're making an assumption, but if you haven't read the book you are in for a surprise.