Copy Editors, Read This and Weep

In my day job, it fell upon me to read Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists, an organization I had no idea existed until that moment. It was pretty much what you'd expect, very bland but harmless, until I came upon a profile of this woman who owns and edits a community newspaper in Utah who does a lot of work teaching reporters about the state's FOI and open government laws.
I'd tell you more about her, but I can't. The article failed to mention the name of the community newspaper the woman owns. It failed to mention the name of the entire community for which it is the newspaper. That's a clean whiff on two of the five Ws, in an article in a publication by and for professional journalists. Holy shit!!!
I brooded about this all day. Hundreds of unemployed pros out there, and you KNOW this story was done by a freelancer who might be 20 years old because he/she came cheap.
I doubt there are many people on the magazine's desk, either.
If a professional organization doesn't have enough self-respect to demonstrate professional pride, it's tough to see a bright future for the profession it represents.

 

Maybe she made some enemies, didn't pay some debts, left a bad situation to make their lives over again in Utah. Hey, maybe it's Gary Coleman!

 

She runs the Valley Journals, a bunch of monthly rags in the SLC suburbs. I never knew any of these papers existed until this thread and I lived in the area for eight years until I moved to my current gig in May.

www.valleyjournals.com

 

If the magazine needs any older freelancers who understand things like names and locations are important, PM me...

 

I've always been willing to read pretty much anything pertaining to the practice of journalism, but I never found Quill interesting and stopped reading it sometime in the 1980s.

 

what's your day job?

 

If you go to Utah, you stay in Utah.

 

Too bad the article glossed over the fact that the Utah Attorney General's Web site has forms for anyone to print out to request records under the GRAMA Law.

I'm sure you need a records request for the top story of Santa visiting Draper.

 

But, if it were in a blog, it would be fine.

 

Ah, you had to do it, didn't ya.

 

Michael, I say this with all respect to one of the good posters here, but I find it just really odd that you've been in the business and never heard of SPJ until just this week. Just weird to me.

 

I guess so.

That burr is about the size of a basketball.

;D