Question for people who are or have been at weeklies

What constitutes a newspaper to you Versatile?

 

Journalism. Your "formulas" seem devoid of news values.

 

Mr. X - Do you have a journalism degree? Just curious.

 

So why do you maximize the number of names? To make parents (who are potential employers) happy.

That's not journalism. That's PR.

Pick one field or the other. You can't straddle the line. (PR salaries tend to be much higher so if that's what you want to pursue, you should do it asap. Otherwise, you're likely to kill your credibility as a journalist. People will figure it out.)

 

Until the 2009-2010 school year, I wrote a roundup of all of the varsity events of the only school we cover for the previous week. That is what I again hope to do beginning next week. I doubt anyone could tell that you would have a few more names when writing about a basketball game.

I've had no problems with credibility. Reporters from daily papers would look at what I wrote to see what was going on at the school, because there is no daily newspaper covering it, and I would draw praise from them.

 

I love ya, Greenie, but I really want to ask why that matters?

Some of the best newspaper guys I know do not have journalism degrees.

 

Reporters from daily papers read your stuff because it makes it easy for them to get the info in one reliable place each week without having to search all over creation or track down coaches. They also likely roll their eyes when you mention that little Jimmy had one point.

 

To clarify: The weekly is just your ticket to a different gig, and you're only there to get in good with some movers and shakers. The only reason you care if the story runs is the player is from, as you say in the first post, "a very respected family."

So, if we're completely taking the whole element of, you know, news out of it, why not let the family know exactly what happened? It's not what I would do from a journalism prospective, but that doesn't seem to be your M.O.

 

Mr. X should shut his trap next time when he complains about his rag not printing his list of names.

 

What happened this week was a 633-word story on an NFL player didn’t get run, which upset me and I think justifiably so. I’m going to try to rework it for next Thursday, but I don’t think it’s going to be as good.

The roundups I write are pretty much like high school roundups at just about every newspaper. Other than the inclusion of a low-scoring basketball player, probably no one could tell the difference.

 

Oh I definitely agree. I was more worried if he does have a journalism degree and he's spouting off this shit.

 

I know these are old posts, but seem relevant today.

You can tell by Mr. X's old posts that he doesn't know much about journalism. I wonder if he's still with the same paper for several years and is just using the line that's he's looking for a way out.