Competition

A similar thread like this was locked a few months ago but in light of the recent changes in the industry, i wonder do scribes still feel like there is competition and is there any animosity towards the competition these days?

 

Read this yesterday. Touches on the exact subject:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003953697

 

Every reporter should have, if not a competitor, something to measure himself against. Maybe it's local TV or radio, or maybe it's a writer in a totally different market who's winning APSEs. There are very few truly competitive situations in our profession anymore, and that's too bad. Competition makes us better.

 

On the macro level, the entire business history of newspapers has been the race to become a monopoly and eliminate competition.
On a personal level, working in a two-newspaper town was both challenging and great fun. How can you cover sports if competition doesn't turn you on?

 

I've worked at both -- newspapers with and without competition. It's different. Very different.

 

Content-sharing. The ultimate cure for competition.

 

How so?

 

I've also worked in both and concur that it is very different.

In a non-competitive situation, you get complacent, especially once you settle in, you don't dig like you should, you don't go that extra mile and you really don't need to because you aren't waking up every day worrying what the other guy has.

In a competitive situation, you work your ass off to make sure you don't get beat on anything, no matter how little, and you work the phones and beat the bushes for every little piece of information then wake up early and open the other guy's paper hoping that you didn't get beat on anything......

The level of pressure and the level of intensity are much higher when there is another guy digging for the same shit you are digging for.

 

I agree. However, in m travels I've found that the competitve edge comes from two sources, the journalist and management. Personally, I love competition but I've been in one-horse markets where that same competitve spirit isn't shared. It can make you very lazy.
I've also been in a competitve situations where management becomes too overbearing with wanting to beat the competiition on everything.
If there's one thing I have learned, it's that no one gets every story. The trick is to be consistent and should you be beaten on a story, be prepared with follow up story that will give the competition fits.

 

That is so true -- when you do get beat, make sure the next day story advances the story even more than the competition does.

And it isn't so much that you get lazy as it is you don't have the same level of urgency as you do when you have someone at the other paper pushing you every day.

In a non-competitive situation you have the ability to say -- "Should I make a few more calls or go to my kid's little league game and worry about it tomorrow?"

 

Yup. Pretty much word for word. Or WFW as the cool cats around here like to say.

 

Zag, a few times i've been in non competitive situations and have had management say "We can sit on this a day or two" or "We'll keep this in the can and see if something else develops."
Then when the story is broken by another source, management says "You should've said something."
Now that will piss you off in a heartbeat.