Blood in the streets of Hartford and Baltimore

Just to review, before any of you come to this kid's defense, in addition to being flip about layoffs he:

1. Complained about how one of his stories was edited on the blog, saying that people shouldn't have rewritten his copy. I saw the original. It was AWFUL. Kid should be lucky the story made it into the paper at all.

2. He blogged about conversations he overheard between editors. Not conversations he was a part of, mind you. Just stuff he overheard. Just threw it up on the blog, like it was his business.

3. He was flip about the fact that 60 people are going be laid off, fired, or forced to take buyouts.

4. Keep in mind, he's ONLY summer intern at the Sun, and he also did this UNDER HIS OWN NAME.

I'm all for understanding when kids make youthful fuckups, but I'm also sick and tired of the new generation of college kids thinking that the Internet is their personal diary. They put shit on the web, then act petulant when it gets read and gets them in trouble.

There were a lot of people in tears yesterday after our meeting, trying to figure out how to pay mortgages, send their kids to college, pay for vacations, medical care, etc. When I was 22 and I started at my first internship, I was absolutely terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing. I wanted to keep my head down, do good journalism, and hopefully turn it into a fulltime job. The last thing on my mind was literary masturbation.

Just to repeat: YOUR BLOG IS NOT YOUR FUCKING DIARY.

 

I wish that damn blog was still available so I know who NOT to hire in the future.
My friends are getting fired and he's making fuckn jokes! Asshole!

 

If more and more shops would use stuff like Hotwire for hotel rates and maybe a service like Kayak to compare prices, maybe things wouldn't be as bad.

 

The blogger obviously forgot rule number one in journalism. Don't crap where you eat (without covering your tracks).

 

i'm left wondering if he can be disciplined for this?

 

If this ends up being a D_B, I'll take it down, but ...

Preps sports writer, Santa Fe New Mexican, June 23.

http://apse.dallasnews.com/job_board/2008/2199.html

 

But, H.L., the BLOGS!!! are the way of the future, man. That's the way to connect with the reader and have a "conversation" with customers. Good or bad, BLOGS!!! should be a window for people to look through.

(Stupid intern.)

 

From Romenesko today

About 900 newspaper jobs were eliminated this week (http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/2008/06/death-of-almost-1000-cuts.html)
Recovering Journalist | Gannett.com
"Newspapers brought these problems on themselves," writes Mark Potts . "Yeah, the economy's a mess, which is exacerbating the situation. But what's happening to the industry is a massive structural change that might have been avoided-or at least reduced-by smarter management and an understanding of how the Internet is changing the business." || Gannett news exec: (http://gannett.com/go/newswatch/2008/jun/nw0626-1.htm) "In troubling times in our industry, we are not about to retreat."

 

yup. it's been on the SportsJournalists.com jobs board longer than the APSE jobs board.

 

A lot of very thin skin around here for a bunch of sports writers who write about hirings and firings and job performances all of the fucking time. Do we just write and opine about everyone and anybody unless it's ourselves?