1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Beware, Trentonian offering jobs that don't exist

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Interim Bedwetter, Jan 23, 2007.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. aeroking

    aeroking Member

    Angola, trust me, I know how important deadline is. We piss away deadline and the whole process breaks down. But hwo do we know they didn't say, "late games are vital, we're adjusting our pressroom and trucks to allow you to get those games in"? Yeah, it's highly unlikely, but as I keep pointing out, that's an internal issue. Editorial deadlines are set based on how much time the rest of the crew needs to get the paper on the street. Maybe the Trentonian found a way to cut in half the time from when the paper leaves editorial until it hits the street. Obviously unlikely. But as a reader, it's far more important to address the content of the section than the very very rare time that the paper doesn't get on the street. All I'm saying is if deadline were such an issue, it would have been dealt with. How could it not be?
    I'm still waiting on a serious discussion of what this sports section needs to live up to the potential people on here see it having.
     
  2. That's a good discussion, but the point is that ol' Banana-Ball Bracy, or whoever the sports editor of the Trentonian will be next week or next month, can't possibly win because JRC has stacked everything against him. I'd be more sympathetic -- a la Boots -- if he weren't the 25th sports editor. Bracy should have known better.

    Take the $35 stringer fee. Who do they possibly think they can get to work a high school baseball game for less money than the french-fry cook at McDonald's gets? If Jelenic wants a better section, then he's going to have to pony up more money -- but, of course, he won't. Maybe that's point No. 1 to a better section: pay people more money.

    Bracy, in my mind, has made a big mistake by trying to write as he learns the sports editor's position. His notes-and-quotes column was worse than hackneyed and cliched -- it didn't have to be in the paper. And the thing is, he took time to write it when I'm sure he had other fires to put out. Point No. 2: take care of the infrastructure first.

    Bracy sounds young. He was a copy editor with, as far as I can tell, no managerial experience. You can't slap a guy, no matter how well-intentioned, into a middle-management position. The guy sounds as if he's taking his cues from the editor who's treated his people like dogshit. The guy is probably in over his head, and it doesn't help that he has no assistant. Point No. 3: get the guy some help.

    All three of these points are tied to one thing: money, which JRC doesn't have or doesn't want to spend. I wouldn't know Aaron Bracy if I fell over him at the practice green, and he might be a well-meaning person who wants to do a good job, but until the corporate culture at JRC changes (and it won't), it will be virtually impossible for him to succeed.

    That's the thing that a lot of visitors to this thread don't understand. If you read the Mary Walton story posted here a couple of thousand pages ago, you'd get that this isn't exactly a well-oiled machine.
     
  3. lapdog

    lapdog Member

    That's the way JRC works. Bring in some mid-level management bungler who fucks up the situation worse than it was already (from nearly all reports, although they had many other serious problems, the Trentonian was NOT consistently blowing deadlines on every edition by hours every night), then scapegoat underlings for the problem and go on a firing spree.

    The only way ANY JRC paper is going to improve, functionally or in substantive content, is if Jelenic has a return battle with cancer, and this time the right side wins. Keep hope alive.
     
  4. Mystery_Meat

    Mystery_Meat Guest

    I'm woozy from the class being displayed.
     
  5. boots

    boots New Member

    Apparently, JRC could care less what the rest of the industry is doing.
     
  6. lapdog

    lapdog Member

    Sympathy for an abusive sadistic tyrant who has made his entire career out of destroying his employees' careers and lives? Fuck that shit.

    Not only do I hope he has a return bout with cancer, I hope it's a nice long one. Karma is a bitch.
     
  7. wickedwritah

    wickedwritah Guest

    As much of a piece of human slime Robert Jelenic may be, I don't wish cancer on him or his family.

    Understand why some JRC folks may, but take the high road.
     
  8. wickedwritah

    wickedwritah Guest

    Not sympathy. Just a modicum of class.
     
  9. lapdog

    lapdog Member

    If poor Bobby's cancer comes back, at least he's got his Cadillac-level health insurance to fall back on.

    Employees, or former employees -- tough shit for you.

    As for the employees Jelenic has decapitated out of their jobs, the shit is even tougher. They just get to waste away and die.
     
  10. The deadline discussion between aeroking and Angola! is very sensible and very reasonable.

    Sensible and reasonable, however, aren't words adhered to or understood by JRC. These high-level JRC cats are closer to being alien life forms than human life forms when it comes to sense, reason and rationality. When you try to understand anything JRC-related, you have to ignore all that might instinctively come to your mind as being reasonable, sensible or rational. Who knows what those JRC alien life forms think about missing deadlines, and allegedly by such extreme amounts. Whenever there is the possibility of there being a reasonable and sensible answer for something that is happening within the JRC universe, that's not the real answer. The real answer is moronic and irrational.

    In the real newspaper world, this is a valid question. JRC doesn't care about making its newspapers or sports sections better for newspaper readers of Trenton, West Chester, New Haven, Oakland, Mich., etc. Remember, you need to think unreasonably and irrationally if you want to solve this JRC puzzle. JRC, in other words, Jelenic, only wants to make the newspaper better for one reader: himself. And that's if the goal even is to improve any paper at all. It's hard for non-JRC cats to truly get that, but it the sad truth.

    Maybe down the road of his career, AB actually turns into a fine SE. JRC, though, didn't bring him in to produce a better product. AB was brought in because he wouldn't cost JRC as much as a real SE and because someone, presumably Matt DeRienzo, believed he would follow every insane JRC command and desire, no matter how unethical or senseless it might be. And, like a good JRC henchman, when any of those JRC commands are unable to be met, he would know enough to find some copy editor, reporter or other cat to blame.
     
  11. boots

    boots New Member

    It is what it is. Perhaps people are expecting too much.
     
  12. This is so incredibly profound. What is what it is? JRC? The Trentonian? The sports editor's job? People are expecting too much from who? Jelenic? Bracy? DiRienzo?

    Boots, you're not adding anything to the discussion. You sound as if you're bluffing your way through a cocktail-party conversation. I don't even think you know this company or these people.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page