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Paul O back in the LANG fold

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by rpmmutant, Aug 22, 2008.

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  1. Piotr Rasputin

    Piotr Rasputin New Member

    PaulO reads the site more than he says . . . . . . It's classic how people always say that: "Um, hey, I'm not in that place; uh, FRIENDS told me!" I guess maybe we're that bad?

    But anyway, I threw out the $10,000 figure because the main Olympics thread here had featured someone saying that papers were told two years ago that about $20,000 per reporter should be the expected price. Thought that was high; having traveled in Asia, and factoring in flights, meals, hotels and the possibility of covering Olympic events in cities other than Beijing, I figured closer to $10,000 was about right.

    Good for Oberjuerge that he did it for much less than that. But again, if you have a reporter who travels to the other cities where events were other than Beijing, it could get more expensive. Especially if you had to pay more than "40 cents on the dollar" for your hotel room.
     
    Piotr Rasputin, Aug 30, 2008
    #25
  2. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    PaulO is the king of cutting corners when it comes to expenses. It really was a marvel to watch over the years. Some would say crazy. But when you're a sub-100K paper and you try to play up as much as possible with the big boys, you do what you can. I learned a lot to get as much bang out of your buck as possible.

    Big fight in Vegas? He drives up Saturday about noon. Writes a gamer, column and notes. Then drives home afterward. He'd rent a car, so the total cost would be less than $100. Rams, USC or UCLA in the Bay Area? Fly up Saturday morning. Cover it (with three stories) and fly home that evening. I did that twice when the D3 football team I was covering had a game in the Bay Area. Flew into Oakland in the morning, rented a car and drove to the 1 p.m. games, was on a plane by 6:30 (writing on the plane ride home), back in the office by 8:30 with a gamer and notebook in the Sunday section.

    He'd do the same thing renting a car and coming home afterward to go to Phoenix for games (Dodgers, USC, UCLA, etc.).

    When I saw/talked with him in July and he told me he was going, he told me his plans for housing (it wasn't set at the time, but it was a great idea, and it obviously worked) and if he broke even, he'd be happy. I'm glad it did.

    $10,000 for 2 1/2, three weeks? He'd scoff at that, and he obviously did.

    As for the credentialing, I've mentioned before that you have to set these up a year in advance. A year ago, LANG was going, led by PaulO, so he had a credential. Then the joke of a firing came. And LANG sent no one. (Meanwhile, the MediaNews-owned Denver Post sent seven people with far few Olympians than those from SoCal). But he was able to keep the credential, I suspect because a lot of U.S. print media decided not to go and he was going to freelance for U.S papers (and, as it turned out, Web sites). And I suspect he's got good relations with the USOC from having covered every Olympics except one since Sarajevo in 1984.

    He thrives off big events. Breaking even but at the Olympics writing/blogging? He'd be content with that. And obviously is. And I suspect more freelancing opportunities will be available in Vancouver and London with fewer papers going to the Olympics. Hopefully, the USOC will credential him and he'll be there, if he wants to go.
     
    MileHigh, Aug 30, 2008
    #26
  3. CaliforniaRed

    CaliforniaRed Member

    Kudos for choosing to take a "business trip" which won't cost him a lot of money but most of us won't classify it as a business trip. I'd call it a hobby.
     
    CaliforniaRed, Aug 31, 2008
    #27
  4. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    Yup. And since he was working and paid for his room, food, airfare out of his own pocket, he can write it off as a "business" deduction.
     
    MileHigh, Aug 31, 2008
    #28
  5. SoCalScribe

    SoCalScribe Member

    It's pretty easy to bust someone's balls for spending a month working his/her ass off and basically not making a dollar. But, on a much smaller scale, I have to imagine there are thousands of high school freelancers who make the same sacrifice to cover a football game for $50 every Friday. They want to see a game, and making 40-45 bucks after gasoline and depreciation seems like a better deal to them for 4-5 hours' work than buying a ticket.

    The idea of working for a pittance is far from foreign to this industry.
     
    SoCalScribe, Sep 1, 2008
    #29
  6. Joe Williams

    Joe Williams Well-Known Member

    Bully for him then. If it's something he loves, and his newspaper situation threatened to torpedo it for him this year, I'm glad he was able to salvage it. A lot of us have had to give up a lot of what we loved about this business, so making it work for him and his was a nice save.
     
    Joe Williams, Sep 1, 2008
    #30
  7. AVSE

    AVSE Member

    It's actually about 18 months in advance to apply for credentials. The deadline for 2010 was in September.
     
    AVSE, Oct 10, 2008
    #31
  8. Editude

    Editude Active Member

    According to his blog, he has a temp editing gig in Hong Kong for the International Herald Tribune.
     
    Editude, Oct 10, 2008
    #32
  9. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    Yes. Four-month gig.
     
    MileHigh, Oct 11, 2008
    #33
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