Prima donnas in the newsroom

And he hasn't been shit-canned yet? Jeebus.

 

About a decade ago we had a mandatory staff meeting for the entire staff, no exceptions unless you were traveling. The lead columnist showed up and I saw one of the copy editors talking with him after the meeting. As I approached, I heard the copy editor say, "Well, it was nice to finally meet you in person."

I asked the copy editor how long he had been at the paper because I knew it had been a long time.

"11 years."

To be fair, the columnist came in the office about once a month, but it was always in the mornings, which was when most of the writers would come in to file expenses and whatnot, but 11 years without writing in the office once or even crossing paths with the guy seems insane to me.

 

At my last two jobs, I didn't have a desk or a phone (I did have a phone number and voice mail) but there was no reason to come into the office except to file expenses and go to staff meetings.

 

Man, I could have SWORN that I knew this person. Oh well ... Now there are two out there.

RB

 

There are probably thousands more like him or her out there.

Not to mention the bean counters who don't know jack about people skills or putting out a quality newspaper.

 

You can't be serious, man.
Worry about yourself. Just because a guy doesn't go in and sit at a desk for eight hours doesn't mean he isn't damn fine at what he does.

 

It is just as disrespectful for you to question them.
Again, mind your damn business. Do you job, let others do theirs.
It is people like you, who stick their noses where they are not supposed to be, who ruin morale. Let the bosses be the bosses.

 

How is not being in the office when there's little to no reason to be in the office a lack of respect?

 

If this thread is really just about someone in the office bitching about someone else who never comes into the office, I'm going to go back and remove my posts. That is and always has been a waste-of-time envy issue that has nothing to do with good journalism. The stories aren't happening inside the newsroom walls, folks.

I was led to believe this was about some staffer not being a team player in the least, not communicating about coverage of breaking news and playing by a special set of rules regarding deadlines and copy changes. Please tell me we're past the "I have to be in the office, how come he/she doesn't have to be in the office?" childishness.

 

That's crazy.

I'm so sick of writing and newspapers that I barely even bother to read what I wrote the next day. Christ, every word could be changed, and I might not know. Sometimes, when I'm real busy and covering something I really don't care about, I barely read stuff as I'm writing it.

That's probably apathetic and unprofessional, but I think we've all been there. Covering a girls basketball game in which the final score is 97-17 is bad enough to watch, much less write about and then read online or the next day.

 

Agreed.

There are many beats at larger papers that don't require a reporter to be in the office all that often. The best example is a state where the major paper is in the largest city, but the largest state university (and the most popular state college sports teams) is three hours away.

You certainly wouldn't expect reporters on that university beat to be in an office three hours away very often when they have games/practices/interviews to attend to, would you?

 

In perspective, we have much worse going on in our newsroom than prima donas. This is just an annoyance.