Mark Whicker, what were you thinking?

Tim, you're out of line. There are many reasons why many of us keep our anonymity here.
I've known Mark for the better part of two decades. I've made the same stance you have.
But, because others disagree with you isn't reason to discount an argument. What hurt Mark's career was his column. Nothing anything anyone said on this thread since.

If you think otherwise, give Ken Brusic a buzz.

(Small sidebar: when I judged your columns the last 20 years, I did that anonymously.)

 

Clearly the "stop whining" and "bingo" people never have been in this situation, or they might not be as ignorant as they have displayed themselves to be here.

So far, only one person, maybe two, have been in the situation, and they seem to get it.

The ones who want to blame people other than the writer don't get it. Not very shocking.

Also, I'm with Tim Sullivan about the anonymity thing. Yes, I'm using the cover here, but it's appropriate for this thread, for reasons that may or may not become apparent.

But anonymity is not appropriate for a large percentage of the threads at this board.

 

GrizzlyAdams,

There probably are more people who have been in the situation -- either as a spiker or attempted-spiker (or, perhaps, as the spikee) -- than may say so on here because they don't want to go into details.

In the interests of maintaining anonymity, people may withhold information, inside knowledge or telling details. They do it all the time, probably quite often without anyone realizing it, or understanding why. People may even refrain from responding at all.

You never know, so you can't always take people's non-responses, or incomplete responses, as "telling" indicators of anything.

As for that anonymity, many of us have, in fact, already been badly hurt by this business -- far more so than Mark Whicker will ever be, either by his own column, or any of our anonymous reactions to it or stances about it.

Some of us maintain that anonymity because, frankly, we have to. I would love to post under my own name, and if my circumstances were different, I absolutely would do so. I'm not afraid of it, and I don't think I've ever said anything on here that I'm ashamed of, or that I wouldn't say in person, anyway.

But, rather than keep completely out of interesting, stimulating discussions and thought-provoking conversations -- which, by the way, is what most people who post under their real names do, thereby negating whatever greater "courage" they supposedly show -- I want to participate, because I think I have things to contribute.

And right now, I can only do that under cover. Anonymity has nothing to do with appropriateness "for a large percentage of the threads" on here. It is appropriate, and sometimes even necessary, for the sake of many people's careers.

Now, I think we've established that spiking a story is not an easy thing to do, and also, that it probably doesn't happen very often.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that, sometimes, it should be done, or at least, attempted.

In this case, it was not, and not enough wholesale editing was done in lieu of that, either, and Whicker's column was the result.

Mark wrote a column, ill-conceived though it was, so he did his job. The desk did not help Mark, backing him up or forcing him to do his job better, and it did not go up the line to do anything else in lieu of that, either. In short, the desk didn't do its job.

 

GrizzlyAdams, instead of harping on the same question forever, why don't you tell us what you would have done? If you had been the one handling Whicker's column that night, would you have just moved it like any other story? Do you think the desk guys at the Register did the right thing?

 

Question for many of you in this thread - Is there anything Whicker could write that would justify a firing?

 

That's fine, but as I think some of the regulars here can attest, this thread is incredibly tame compared to some of the beatings (deserved or not) that writers have taken on this board in the past.

 

Mr Sullivan

Have it your way.

Gare Joyce

 

I think if you look at the first several pages of this thread almost all of the criticism is qualified with a "He's one of the best, but..."

This is a case where I don't think people are piling on.

 

I don't believe anyone should be fired on first offense. This is what unions (and paper trails) were designed to prevent.

 

Well, it depends... It kind of goes back to the whole Rob Parker-Marinelli thing. Did that question merit his firing/resignation? Probably not, but it might have been the final straw.

I read Whicker regularly enough to know this column is not typical of him. But, as many here have pointed out, it might be the most offensive column to ever make it to print.

I don't like to see anybody lose their job. I don't think Whicker will be fired for this column. But the next time the OCR has a round of layoffs, I think he will have a right to be worried.

 

This is exactly my point. I'm sure the Parker-Marinelli thing was the last straw. And if memory serves, he did get the union involved which is why he got a bunch of severance. Orange County is nonunion I believe. No such protection there. In fact, I believe one of the things that finally saved Albom was because the union stepped in on his behalf and stopped the "investigation." (He is a dues-paying member and as it's done by percentage of salary, a nice chunk of change for the guild). I remember a situation once where a writer made one mistake, not a horrible one but it was about the editor's favorite sport and the writer was fired. A nonunion paper, of course.