Newsroom chemistry - how important is it?

This.

It's the one thing I miss the most abot being a staffer. This is going to sound corny, but there's nothing like grinding out the shit on a busy night, getting games covered, taking calls, putting pages together...everyone cranking it out and helping each other, cracking jokes all the time, then getting that first-run paper off the press and realizing you got the job done.

Then going out for beers.

Of course, it helps when everyone gets along, and for the paper I worked at, everyone in the sports department was good friends. I still stay in touch with those dudes, but I damn sure miss working with them every day. When you can work well and work hard and work with friends, that's a good situation, no matter how shitty the industry is.

Frankly, there's not a day that goes by where I don't wish I had that back, but it wasn't my choice to leave, so no sense crying about it.

 

Yeah, but at my last stop, nobody ever went out for beers.
It was like that old line about the Yankees of a certain era: "25 players, 25 cabs."

 

I've always enjoyed hiring and working with younger people who want to get better -- even long ago when I was one of them.

Pride in the product still matters, and having fun still matters. In my best places, the core did everything together, and if there was a fight -- and there are going to be among a group of talented people -- it was forgotten 10 minutes after it was over.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd rather have a group of 7s or 8s, maybe even some 5s or 6s, who bust their ass, are trying to move ahead and are good people than a group of 9s and 10s who can take it or leave it, are prima donnas and assholes to boot.

 

That really nails it.

 

I've been on all three sides. I was a one-man sports section at one stop for four years. Very hard to have any chemistry with anyone because I was doing the job myself.

At my current stop, I've been on both sports and news side. In sports, where I'll be returning in a few weeks, has great chemistry. We get along and joke and it makes the job easier to get done, and it makes going into work that much more of a pleasant experience despite the long hours.

On news side, we're all overworked and tired and constantly sniping. I consider the hardest part of my day to be getting in the shower and get ready to go to work, plus the knot I get in my stomach when I approach the building. I'm looking forward to going back into sports.

 

If each individual does his or her job and does it well, it's a lot easier to get along.

 

I can get along with anybody, but it's just more fun to work with paranoid psychotics.

 

Which one of those assholes said we're paranoid?