Sports designer/writer, Jackson Citizen Patriot

But maybe they are.

 

OK, Your Honor, I'll rephrase.

I realize the Jackson paper is not the biggest in the land, but there is no reason on the face of this Earth to have every position be a blend of design, copy editing, proofing pages, scratching ass and answering phones. None whatsoever.

To do this with every position is a sign of extreme disorganization at the managerial level. To perpetuate it and advertise it shows a lack of will to address the issue.

 

It's what my job is (minus the scratching ass) because we have a six-person staff. I'm glad it's that way because it's making me more versatile, and I'll be better off in the long run. If I'm still doing that when I'm 45, then yes, it'll be time to re-evaluate things.

 

I love that this site allows people the anonymity to say whatever they want about situations they don't know anything about. Everyone has a main job in our department, but when the phones all ring at once, someone has to answer them. When the page proofs are flying at 10 minutes to deadline on a football Friday, someone has to proof them. We are all good at different things. Each of our jobs has its own focus. But when it comes right down to it, we all can do it all, and we often have to.

A lot has changed at our newspaper in the past five years or so, and we are restructuring positions to make things work better. The newspaper world is evolving; we are doing our best to keep pace. Every newspaper has gone through changes in the past five or 10 years. Ours is no different.

Most sports editors merely post jobs on this site and let the discussion run its course. I have been involved since the start because I wanted to be open about our situation so people would know whether they wanted to apply. I no longer see any point in being involved. If you think Jackson is a ghetto, that every newspaper is out to lowball people when it comes to salary or that every sports editor who makes changes is disorganized and lacks will, please do not apply for the job.

If you want to work in a professional environment with talented journalists in a fun atmosphere for a newspaper group that treats its employees better than 95 percent of those out there, please pass along your resume and some work samples. If you have any specific questions about the job, please e-mail me.

 

Oh, DyePack is just predictably going bonkers-berserk because the job involves "design," the root of all evil in his journalistic world.

Here's his ideal paper:

 

Cue the Temptations: "And it's the same old song ..."

Yes, we know that because every other newspaper does things poorly, this makes it OK.

And we know that sometimes all the phones ring, so that means answering them should be part of everyone's job.

And we know that pages have to be proofed at the end of the night, so that means everyone on staff, including the janitor, should be prepared to drop mop and grab paper at any second.

As far as Jackson itself, I could comment on that, too, but there's really no need.

 

Starman:

That response just gets more clever every time it's used.

I think you're on your 50th post with that. Have you picked up your set of steak knives yet?

 

Dye, Chris said what I was going to say.

Almost everyone on our staff is well-versed in several different things. Just because this job is for copy editing and design doesn't mean they do both on the same night. Our guys design some nights, copy edit others. Is there some overlap? Yes. But it doesn't mean every night that guys are designing 10 pages, reading 15 stories and proofing.

Deal with it. People do different things on different days.

 

It's about as clever as your fucking interminable bitching about design.

 

I've done the multitasking thing, too. And I've seen it done around me.

I seem to remember rewriting, or even writing, a lot of headlines 10 minutes before deadline because the person whose job it was to do said headline spent the whole night designing rather than reading the story or writing a headline.

I also recall coming in one day to discover we were as of that moment processing our own photos -- with no training and in some cases, no software. Since I had been given the privilege of knowing this little development might happen, I didn't have a meltdown on the spot.

Meanwhile, "small" errors like the Battle of the Bulge taking place in 1947 or the Pistons leaving the Silverdome to move into their new digs just after 2000 were getting into the paper.

I tend to think there's some intertwining of events there.

 

But that's YOUR PAPER where YOU WORKED. It's not the Jackson Citizen Patriot, it's not my paper. You can not paint the entire field based on your experiences. Some of us manage to put out real papers.

 

Said paper was allegedly a real paper when these things happened. Now, not so much.