Bernstein to reporters: Quit rushing

What kills me is when you have a great story that will take time, editors suggest you "peck away" at it between phone calls and stories of mall openings.

All The President's Men 2007
Bradlee: "Woodstein get the fuck in here"
Bernstein: "What's up?"
Bradlee: "Roslyn Carter is in town dedicating a peace garden next to the Pentagon." "Woodward is covering the pardoning of the turkey's at the White House."
Bernstein: "Who'd Nixon pardon? Woodward didn't tell me that was going down."
Bradlee: "Not one of the burglars. The Thanksgiving turkey."
Bernstein: "I can't cover the garden thing Ben, I've got a meeting with a source who is giving me the CREEP office directory in an hour."
Bradlee: "Reschedule it, we've got a hole on 1A and Photo says the art will be great."
Bernstein: "What the hell I'm I supposed to tell my source? That we think some new rose bushes certain to be pissed on by a two-star general are more important than a conspiracy within the President's administration?
Bradlee: "Peck away at the CREEP thing. The deadline for the Pulitzers isn't until December and we're going to make a big Sunday package out of it, but I've got a hole on my goddam A1 tomorrow! You want to explain to Mrs. Graham why there will be a block of white space on our front page instead of a story on something she has financially supported be my freaking guest."

 

Gee, where would they get that idea?
Perhaps from unions demanding overtime pay for salaried workers?

 

No Bonnie references yet. Bad board. Bad.

 

Carl chastises people who work at papers he'd never dream of setting foot in.

No rip on Carl, but he never worked at a small paper, if I recall correctly. It's an entirely different world than the Post.

And if Bonnie told me not to rush, you're damn right I'd listen. And slow down. Of course, this would come right after pigs flew by, doing barrel rolls.

 

Mr Oregon,

Bradlee. And you didn't work in "tit in a ringer," but otherwise excellent.

YHS, etc

 

He's right about this. I often work at my house on my day off. I also know many sports writers who work on their off hours. It comes down to, do you want to do a crappy job or a good one? Yes, you get paid the same, not much, but you have the satisfaction you did the best job you could.

 

It depends what you mean by small. He started as a copy boy at The Washington Star at age 16, but his first reporting job was at a now-defunct daily in Elizabeth, N.J. According to The New York Times' obit of the paper, circulation peaked at just more than 60,000. In the movie "All The President's Men," in the scene in which Bernstein is doing an unauthorized rewrite of Woodward's story, he tells an angry Woodward that "I've been in the business since I was 16." Woodward worked on a small paper in a D.C. suburb.

 

Please, please spell a great editor's name correctly.
It's Ben Bradlee.

 

It's called the time clock, and those outside of management positions punch it.

 

if that's the case, i'd tell bernstein to suck a fat one.

 

I know an EE who was fired for knowingly turning the other way when people were working off the clock. Bernstein needs to wake the fuck up. It's a new age out there.