Has anyone ever REALLY worked with you?

For me it was never about the ability to bulldog a story. When I was starting, it was about building a network of sources and understanding how to work it -- nothing took me longer to master in the business.
And nobody showed me the way.
The good reporters always seemed to want to keep their tricks to themselves. My bosses wouldn't have known how to help.

 

This is one subject where I was lucky, lucky, lucky. I worked for the Boston Phoenix in the late '70s-early '80s. It was an editor's paper in the best sense. I worked with and learned from some seriously overqualified people who have gone on to major, major success as editors. They were demanding, but they also explained every demand, every week, every story, from big sports takeouts to my piddling little restaurant reviews.
When I came to the Herald, I had much to learn about daily newspapering, but as far as writing and reporting goes, I was prepared as I could be. I was ready to be on my own, which at a daily, I think, you almost have to be most days. Even the best editors are going to triage their work. They have to.

 

Sometimes, though, the critique has to come from the right person.

We all have room for improvement, of course, but taking critique from everyone that has words to spew is silly. Opinions are like assholes, etc.

For instance, I worked with an SE at my first stop whose opinion I valued a lot. He was harsh and didn't sugar coat it, but it was easy not to get butthurt because I knew that he was damn good at his job and had a lot to offer. Same with the ASE I worked with. He had experience with things that I didn't, had a damn fine work ethic and earned my respect. What he had to offer was beneficial.

Then, of course, there are the guys like the ASE before the guy that's there now who brought nothing but psychodrama and fail to the newsroom and thought much, much too highly of himself. He was a running joke in the newsroom (and probably is to this day), and screwed up a number of relationships on my beat (their words, not mine) that I had to spend months repairing. He couldn't talk to people, and from what I hear almost threw down with the ME at a company event. Would I take advice from this guy? Past precedent is the best indicator of future behavior. The indicator here is buckets and buckets of fail.

The offering and acceptance of critique is a fine art.

 

for the first time ever on this board, i'm going to disagree with you.

i put in with shottie on this one, which probably means i'm going to burn in hell.

 

to be fair, tom ... that might well have been the case anyway.
I'm just sayin.

 

this guy says you're going to burn in hell for that post ...

 

"I am not going to hell and if you think I'm going to hell, you should care that I'm going to hell even though I am not!"

 

that guy disagrees.

 

Don't get mad at me ... you're the one going to hell.

 

Tomas:

The key qualifier in my prior post was "on my beat," which is NASCAR.

I freely acknowledge that the reverse could well be true at most newspaper sports departments.

But among the men and women in my universe, there's a deep pool on the beat of really, really good writers. There aren't many good, old-fashioned bulldog reporters on this beat. Didn't say it was universal, just true where I am.

And that makes me admire the few great ones even more.

 

There's a copy editor at my shop who will assign the bullshit round-up pieces to the interns, who will take 50 minutes to attempt to make every word worth the four inches they're given before he takes it back from them, essentially re-writes the things and never tells them what they did wrong.

He's supposed to be the hardass of the bunch. To this day, when I hear he has questions for me I still cringe. You should be working with the writers, not talking to them.

 

Those interns will never become worth a damn like that...