Lynn Hoppes: Keep your passion alive

I am a Hoppes fan. I was not a fan of the column.

I think Hoppes is the best SE in the business, especially now that a couple who I might have ranked above him have been promoted.

The reason I feel that way is the way he (and The Sentinel) groom young talent. I could give a shit about awards and I'll be the first to agree that The Sentinel cares more about winning APSEs than any paper in the country.

But there is not a big-time SE in the business who looks harder for undiscovered talent than Hoppes. Most SEs read fewer than 10 resumes for openings. I'll bet Hoppes reads a few hundred per opening.

 

How long was Hill in Orlando? Don't confuse getting another job with getting better. If they groomed Hill in Orlando, she must have been unreadable upon arrival. No need to renew the debate on the best farm systems, though I will vouch for 1HP's. Frank R. probably worked with some of the S.I. pipeline talent, and Tard arrived straight from UM. Impressive. Better still, in the past 10 years 1HP has hired three part-time clerks who lacked the prestigious J-school pedigree or small-circ APSEs and molded them into pro beat writers.

 

Yes, I read this message board.
Not as much as some people think, though.
I love the idea of refocusing APSE.
We are slowly moving the ship.
We now can make changes by voting online.
That was the first step.
We have realigned the committees with real and attainable goals.
That was the second step.
We are looking at adding a college category.
We are looking at the job board and how to utilize that better.
We are looking at refocusing the regional meetings.
I'll welcome any ideas.
Like the column or hate it, that's OK.
I'm a big boy.
The APSE website just needs the web hits.

 

Welcome to the thread, Lynn!

 

I'm not violating any confidences to tell you that someone I know who got forced out of a job in our business came very near to hitting rock bottom, and could have used that mental-health help desperately.

When you drill it into people that their work is a calling and taps into their passions and has so much to do with everything other than money, it's no wonder their hearts and their identities get ripped out when some bean-counter draws a thick black marker line through their name and salary.

Newspapers better start addressing this, at least, if they're going to keep shedding people. They act like they're simply nudging you into another career but what they're really doing is breaking hearts and crushing spirits.

 

WFW, Joe.

 

Of all those things you're talking about, only the jobs board is anything other than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

It's newspapers that are forcing people out, then turning their backs on the former employees. Tell me one thing you're doing, or looking at doing, to help those displaced by these cuts. One thing. And I'm sorry, voting online is not even the same ballpark.

 

I believe former Miami Herald employees have made this case well in the past, but just to reiterate: When it came to developing talent in news and sports, in both writing and editing, the Herald was unsurpassed in the 1980s and 1990s.

 

Lynn, I'm sorry that it's your turn to lead APSE during the worst year for the business. Others have served in easier times, and you'd have had to have been clairvoyant to envision this when you entered the line of succession. But it is your turn. What you suggest is peripheral. And APSE needs to make it a priority to be of some significant, tangible use to the suffering, immediately. This is the defining moment of your year. This is something that's necessary -- a journalism organization needs to do it. People in every department of every newsroom in the country are looking for even a faint indication that some semblance of a soul remains. It would be quite a moment for sports journalism if those other departments saw the first sign of one coming from a bunch of sports editors.

 

Frankly, I have a hard time hearing someone in management at a newspaper preaching about keeping the faith and passion alive.
Bullshit. Passion is being eliminated with each bone-headed move by people from assistant managing editor on up. A large percentage of newspaper managers/executives attained their positions not based on the skins on their walls but because they could best parrot the party/corporate line. They're mostly interested in CYA.
I and a number of friends/associates in the business who were passionate about their jobs and about producing an excellent sports section are out of the business. Their passion was dashed against the rocks of corporate greed, stupidity and incompetence. The front-line professionals who are/were passionate about their jobs aren't what management wants. Management wants cheap labor who are OK with sitting on their butts in an office making phone calls to "cover" a beat.
Mr. Hoppes, go find another congregation to preach to. Some of us realize your sermon is a bunch of words filling space on the APSE web site.

 

No compliments for Lynn's free verse? He always had his own style of doing things.