One of the coolest things I've ever experienced

I'm just saying he has huge shoes to fill...

 

The fact that this thread can take a turn such as this says a lot about the board these days and some of the people on it.

Roanoke, thumbs up.

 

I'll second that.
Don't want to get too off topic here, but I met Jeff a few times as a student at the U of M and he was always a good guy and a good reporter.

 

Think it says more about the business. Owners, publishers and top editors cutting and slashing real journalists, whose jocks they cannot carry. But our labor, class and integrity make them richer -- until the next round of cutbacks, which makes them richer still.

The newsroom folks who will bust a gut and be appreciative of a parcel of goodies get laughed at by those in the corporate suites, who only know rewards of green and gold. We can send each other all the snack cakes and soda pop we want but until we draw a line in the sand and start covering the hell out of above-mentioned jerks who are ruining the profession, we deserve their lack of respect.

Yea for Roanoke. But those journos could do their Star Tribune peers a bigger favor by investigating Par Ridder, Avista Equity and the crap they pulled on the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

 

Very classy gesture. And I'll ditto an earlier post: Hope one of these boxes never shows up at our shop.

 

I'm guessing all of us agree with you... I sure as hell do... Just not on this thread...

No disrespect intended...

 

OK, none taken. Didn't mean to hijack.
Just figured I'd do more than throw more entirely deserved attaboys at Roanoke. Where the newsies soon will have a new group of freshmen (and their anxious parents) to cover. Talk about an orientation. Best of luck to all.

Still . . .wonder if Tribune Co. execs sent Star Tribune execs a crate of wine or something when they took their turn eliminating jobs? If that's as "cool" and special as things get at the corporate level, we should pity the fools. They'll never know the rewards available from within a newsroom.

 

Absolute chaos. That's the only way to describe it.

 

Imagine the chaos that you see on an election night, with about twice as many people there. Plus, you add in the natural human element that we're all impacted by a disaster in our community. Where on an election night, most of the reporters involved could care less about what's going on, in a disaster, everyone is impacted somehow so it's hard to check the personal heartache at the door and jump into covering it.

And the biggest thing that comes out of almost every disaster story from the newsroom: In the future, when one of your new guys in sports says "Why do I need to know how to cover *insert random news side thing here*? I work in sports." You'll be able to actually understand what it means that you should be able to do anything in every newsroom you work in. You never know when you'll be called in to help out with something totally unrelated to anything you've ever covered or experienced.

 

Imagine your newsroom on the night of the 2000 presidential election. I'm guessing that short of having a disaster in your coverage area, that was probably the most chaotic you'll ever see a newsroom under relatively normal circumstances...

With a disaster in your coverage area, whether it's something like the Minneapolis bridge disaster, a bombing, 9/11, a Virginia Tech type incident, you multiply everything by 1,000. When it happens in your backyard, there's a pretty good chance that someone you work with will have a family member or a close friend who is involved. People will be scrambling to make sure loved ones are OK, even as they try to do their jobs.

We're all used to working under pressure and on deadline, but when this kind of stuff happens in your backyard, it goes up about 1,000 notches...

I'd be curious to hear stories from people who were in NYC newsrooms when 9/11 happened.

 

I was kind of annoyed with Joe Williams with slipping corporate bashing into a very cool thread, but it doesn't hurt anything, I guess. He's right, just probably didn't need it here. But no big deal.

As for what the newsroom can be like in something like this, this first happened to me on a very small scale my second year in the business. I was sitting in the bar across the street from the paper in Bradenton, Fla., when word came that a tanker truck had overturned and exploded in a residential neighborhood a couple of miles away. Several deaths, lots of evaculations, fuel getting into the sewer system and extending the hazard for blocks.

Weren't many people around at that time of night, at least not yet, and all of the sudden, I was a news reporter. I'd say serves me right for drinking in close proximity to the office, but it was one of the most invigorating and interesting nights of my career.

A couple of years later, a freighter hit the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay. And all of the sudden, I was a news editor putting out my only career extra for the Clearwater Sun. Same rush.

That's always been a funny part of this profession, and I hope this is taken correctly: Many of the best nights, and much of the best work done, comes when your community or the world hits an extreme low point. Just the nature of the beast.

I hope -- and assume -- the Star-Tribune will extend this chain the next time it comes up. Hopefully not anytime soon.

 

What about the Pioneer Press? Did they get a goodie box, too?