Blood in the streets of Hartford and Baltimore

That would be the way to go, instead of feeling like you have to justify every dime you spend.

 

Know all about it, Waylon. Have done it at various times throughout my career, heavy beat coverage at high levels. So I know that there is all sorts of residual value to being on the road with your team. I'm just saying, a 10-20 percent reduction wouldn't adversely affect that stuff and plugging those holes in the daily paper wouldn't be that tough either. If you went to half-time or worse on the road, I'd argue from the same side as you.

 

If they gave writers $50 a day per diem, the writers would be happy, stocking up on press box food and continental breakfasts and papers would be seeing a lot fewer receipts from steakhouses and "dinners" that happen from midnight to 2 a.m.

 

OK, cool. Wasn't slamming you or anything. There are some people who really don't understand why traveling pays off - particuarly bean counters upstairs. At my old paper, they had fire in their eyes every time we covered a major college or pro team (we were a suburban paper in a top three market), but then when the NFL Playoffs or NBA Finals came along, suddenly they wanted us to absolutely own coverage of it. They had absolutely no idea how it worked.

 

This thread is getting hijacked!

Here's something to get it back on track.

There's an intern at The Sun who's been blogging about his summer at the paper:
http://plimack.blogspot.com/

He had the misfortune of being linked to by Media Gossip right before he wrote this yesterday:

Now I think he seems like a nice enough kid and meant his comments to be a rueful expression of sympathy, but you never F with another man's livelihood.

He's already gotten this response on his blog:

And now his line about always wanting to witness an execution has been cut-and-pasted into an email that's making the rounds at The Sun. Summer intern, congratulations! You've just become the focus and target of the anxiety and anger being felt by 300 pissed-off journalists at the Baltimore Sun!

 

Too bad it's now open "to invited readers only".

 

D'oh!

 

Is the kid doing anything wrong?

 

I thought it was kind of funny. Gallows humor has always been an important part of being a reporter. It's a device used to seal off our emotions.

 

He was quoted out of context. The email at The Sun just says something like:

Look what this snot-nosed intern blogged yesterday:
"I love the smell of layoffs in the morning.

It's like leading lambs to the slaughter. I'll be there. I've always wanted to witness an execution. "

which, if that's all you read, would be pretty annoying

 

When you're the one getting laid off and you're trying to figure out how you're going to pay October's mortgage and car payments, probably NOTHING is going to seem very funny. But those who took offense should realize that they probably write things everyday about the misfortunes of others.

 

The kid's a dope. you don't BLOG!!!! about your summer internship when you're interning in a dying field.

Dumbass. Oh well, now there's just 1,999,999 people vying for the same job as me instead of 2,000,000.