Copy editor, New Jersey

Rumor has it another sportswriter just quit the Trentonian over being assigned to work desk on the biggest day of the season for his beat. So instead of accepting the desk assignment the writer quit.

Rumor also has it that Aaron is being trained on the new pagination system there. So it looks like he will be paginating and joining the desk at some point.

 

Yo, E Street, that happened last week and was well-chronicled in this thread. Three resignations last week from people that worked for the paper for a combined 28 years ...

 

Sinking... I remember the talk of the resignations of desk guys, but not the resignation of a guy on a main beat.

 

If it all it took was one talented person, then the fact the Trentonian is 0-for-25 is not a good sign. Whether it's a matter of not being able to find the right SE for years, or if it's a matter of the company not supporting them is for people inside the building to answer, not an outsider like me.

Really the question I'd love to see answered, SS, is why would anyone stay that long? Years working in those conditions? It can't be about the money because you could make as much working at a Starbucks full-time. I'm sure there are amateur shrinks out there that would love to offer analysis of the personalities who not only stay someplace so miserable for so long, but the connection that the place's alums seem to maintain with it. Is it martyrdom at the highest level?

 

"One lone talented SE or ASE" has no chance, no chance whatsover to do a "good" job at any JRC paper. The performance curve tops out somewhere between "barely passable" and "minimally acceptable."

In order to do a "good job," somebody first must have a Good Idea.

Anybody trying to run any Good Ideas past anybody higher up on the food chain is swiftly brought up short with the following rebukes:

"Somebody at corporate may not like that."

"You're not hanging that one on me."

"We're paying you to put out pages, not think. The Boys Upstairs will do all the thinking."

(This dovetails nicely with JRC's top-to-bottom corporate view of journalists as dime-a-dozen bottom-dwelling shit-shovelers, a job any rummy slumped over the stoop could probably do.)

Following that, if anything even remotely innovative or creative actually gets in the paper, the next day usually brings a screeching memo, "How did that get in the paper? Why wasn't I (or someone further up the chain) consulted? Who was responsible for this?"

In the unlikely circumstance that something new or innovative actually gets in the paper and draws positive reader response, the NEXT memo usually is something on the order of "it's about time the staff responded to our management initiatives and implemented some of our exciting new plans."

Beyond that, if something new, efficient or creative actually gets in the paper and does NOT result in catastrophic blown deadlines, huge overtime overruns, or anything of that sort, the conclusion drawn by management is the staff is "coddled" and "underworked" -- "they've got extra time to fool around with stuff like this, we must not be keeping them busy enough." The logical next step, of course, is to cut more staff positions.

AND EVEN BEYOND THAT, if everything seems to work out OK, the paper gets out, you have outstanding coverage of local events, then comes another fiery memo about what DIDN'T get in the paper. How come there's no preview story on the Arena Football game??

(Nobody does preview stories on fucking Arena Football games.)

How come the transactions in agate did not contain the waiver list for the Toilet League in Rectal Cavity, Montana? There wasn't room because we devoted page space to the grade-school kickball tournament, just like you ordered us to last week. This week there's a screeching memo demanding more local coverage; next week a fiery e-mail saying national and world coverage has gone to hell. Oh by the way, we're also cutting your staff and cutting your page space, too.

No matter how good a section you may put out, some dipshit with a microscope somewhere will find something he doesn't like about the section and fire off a barrage of blistering e-mails demanding somebody somewhere be made to pay.

Aaron Fucking Bracy or Jesus Fucking Christ couldn't put out a good sports section at the Trentonian or any other JRC paper. It'd be like being the manager of the best-run Burger King franchise in fucking North Korea. Sure you may put out a Whopper that looks edible, but the fucker is still made out of fucking ground dead-dog carcasses, and you'll probably be executed at dawn the next morning because Kim Jong Il thinks you put too much onion on it.

 

Bad day, lapdog?

 

But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

 

I know how some people could see this thread, and the ones before it, as a bunch of ex and current employees with an axe to grind. That said, it's fairly obvious, after eight pages worth of comments, that few, if any, have anything nice to say about this corporation.
And while it's fun to get on here and bitch and expose this company for what it really is, a clueless organization beginning from the top down, I'm wondering if it merits a closer look. I know a few things have been written about JRC in the past - the City Paper article in '97, the AJR article in 2000 and Raffaele's book (though, no offense to the ex-editor, I don't put that in the same class as the other two; I give him points for the effort, just not the execution) - I kinda think there's a good story there that hasn't been written.
Just curious if anyone else thought if examining JRC, and situations like the goings-on in Trenton, would be something worthy of a Rolling Stone or GQ article.

 

The Trentonian isn't 0-for-25. In fact, I'd say the vast majority of the 25 or whatever were very talented people (probably about 80 percent). None of them stayed very long (why would they?) and the paper has been on an unending downward spiral ever since Sandy Schwartz retired 10 years ago.

And no, none of those talented people could put out a good section there now. But you would sure as hell notice their impact within two days (let alone three months).

 

soon to be 0-for-26, and then we'll see if the boy king changes his tune.

 

I'm fascinated by the fact that a job at this shit-ass paper is worth nine pages of comments.

 

you missed another with 30-some pages. a true shithole company that is bastardizing the business.