Sports Writer, Wilson (NC) Times

[Tarheel316]

Sam, I agree the Hammer will outlast us all.

 

[Precious Roy]

Sam, I agree the Hammer will outlast us all.

You know it, even though if you ask him I tried to kill him.
Well, late to the party but hey if everyone is going to say something nice I might as well too. Loved working here and likely would still be either here or somewhere in the area had my home not come calling. Just a nice place to be for a while, easy drive to the beach (Myrtle Beach is about 3 hours away if you hoof it right).
Does the paper still send guys to the ACC basketball tournament? That was a huge plus when I was there, even though I never went. I did however get to cover the Carolina Hurricanes NHL team in their lone Stanley Cup title so far, so that was an experience I will never forget.
Paul is good people, still like to send emails about inside jokes and every once in a while make football picks as a guest picker.
Can't recommend this job more.

 

[ondeadline]

I was SE at an eastern N.C. paper in the late 1980s and Ham was there then. And he was a veteran then! I don't know about now, but they even covered middle school games back then.

 

[writingump]

Threadjack alert: Living here in southern Illinois, I miss Bojangles.

 

[expendable]

This was my first job out of college. Of course I graduated in 2008 when the economy went to shirt and was laid off not too long after I started. They actually laid off a shirt-ton of people 3 years ago. Hopefully it's a little more stable now. Used to be an afternoon paper and a split-shift place but it's now a morning paper so don't know if that's still the case. Aaron Beard (now with the AP) and Eddie Wooten (Greensboro SE) went through here. They went to a redesign a couple years back that looks kinda generic. That said, there are definitely worse jobs out there than this one and I would recommend it to anyone for a first (or second) job. Greenfield usually churns out very good boys basketball and soccer teams. Saints TE Jimmy Graham went to nearby Community Christian. There's 3 county public high schools.

Wilson isn't a metropolis, but for Eastern NC it's very livable. All the conventional chain restaurants and stores are there. I'd rather live there than Rocky Mount, Lumberton, Fayetteville, Kinston, etc... For more excitement, Raleigh and Greenville are very manageable drives.

Most importantly, it's pretty much the epicenter of Carolina bbq. Although Tarheel316 may argue that one.

Wait. They moved Wilson just down the road from Lexington?

 

[Andrew Olson]

I'm a little disappointed that UF did not teach InDesign in an intro/required course for Journalism majors. Seems like a lot of publications want someone with InDesign experience.

UF's program for Journalism majors allows some electives, but you can tell which ones are meant for news reporting, telecom, magazine/feature writing and design. As an aspiring writer, I was told get published, get experience, get clips and network - apparently someone should have said learn InDesign.

 

[Mark2010]

If you've worked with Quark, InDesign is not that large of a jump. I learned on Quark, then self-taught InDesign years later. A few differences, but nothing that can't be learned fairly quickly.

 

[Tarheel316]

If you've worked with Quark, InDesign is not that large of a jump. I learned on Quark, then self-taught InDesign years later. A few differences, but nothing that can't be learned fairly quickly.

I agree. It didn't take long for me to learn InDesign.

 

[Andrew Olson]

If you've worked with Quark, InDesign is not that large of a jump. I learned on Quark, then self-taught InDesign years later. A few differences, but nothing that can't be learned fairly quickly.

I hate to threadjack this even further, but in three years of reporting, my experience has been 99% word processors (Pages, Word, Bean, Evernote, Google Docs). At the local paper (campus correspondent), student paper and the website I've written for, it has always been just e-mailing a file to the editor.

My last layout experience was using Pagemaker in high school. I think Pagemaker was outdated by then, but the school did not have the budget to upgrade.

Again, sorry to threadjack.

I know UF is updating the journalism curriculum, getting rid of some of the intro classes I took in place of new ones, hopefully those include InDesign for reporters.

 

[Mark2010]

Yes, I agree that would a good move for universities to integrate that into their programs.

For you, mate, I would encourage you to learn some pagination skills when possible. The more skills a person has, the more valuable they are. If you work at a small or mid-size paper, many staffers need to be able to do more things. If you want to advance to a different company, learning extra skills won't hurt.

When my first paper went to Quark back in the early 1990s, we had a really rushed tutorial from a company called Baseview. But there was a lot we weren't taught. I recall spending night after night in the newsroom for an hour or two after deadline, reading the manual chapter by chapter and trying stuff out on the machine, making errors and learning one bit at a time. I needed those skills in order to survive.

Talk to a copy editor or your department head and arrange to have someone show you things. Try to learn a little at a time. I've taught several young workers how to paginate. It's a skill, but it ain't rocket science and YOU CAN DO IT! It will be worth your while.

 

[expendable]

I use the quark keys function. I guess that's cheating, but it made the transition smoother.