Running GOOD NEWS in journalism thread

I kept us one step ahead of the competition on three different elements of an area coaching change. We were first on the old coach leaving, announcing the list of finalists for the replacement, and running in tomorrow morning's paper (three days ahead of the presser), naming the new coach.

Granted, it's a D3 job, and the story is a little more important to us than it is the competition. But to the former I point out it's not an ordinary D3 job, it's the men's basketball coaching job at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, once held by Bo Ryan, whose son was a finalist. (Did not get the job.) And to the latter I say competition is competition.

So I'm feeling good about that.

 

2008 fall sports season at my podunk, for which I arrived right at the beginning:

Fall sports guide - let's send out surveys for all the coaches to fill out the day practice starts, and whatever we get in the mail within 10 days we put in the guide!

Fall sports season - We'll cover stuff that's on the schedules, I guess

2009 fall sports season under new editor:

Guide - Let's start compiling everything we can now. As of today, 28/60 fall sports schedules we need are already gathered and typed up into agate form.

Fall sports season - let's bounce ideas around, have a formal meeting in early July to finalize them, present them to the managing editor in mid July, so we'll have plenty of time to implement them by mid-August when the games start.

*contented sigh of the compulsive planner*

 

We've moved from the red to the black for the first five months of 2009 in our 39K shop thanks to a decent second quarter.

 

getting my third espn rise article published soon! i think it's my best one yet, so i'm excited.

 

I got hired. And, if that wasn't good enough, we turned a profit last month.* Hooray!

*The two are not likely related.

 

Change topic to "Walking GOOD NEWS in journalism thread."

I am not surprised that this thread has reached only two pages in nearly a month.

 

My paper has now had five openings in the newsroom in the last year or so, and chose to fill four of them. I was worried about a freeze or elimination each time.

 

One of the assistant coaches on my beat says he doesn't read my blog, but does read the printed edition of our paper every morning. It's how he prefers to read his news.

The good news in that is that he's only about 35, not 65-70.

 

Heard from a former shop today that they got their Christmas bonuses today for 2009.

This deserves the backstory. The bonuses at this shop are legendary in this business (one week's pay for every week of vacation you are eligible for; meaning many veterans get 3-4 weeks pay as a Christmas bonus). When they were struggling like everybody else towards the end of last year, the bonuses for 2009 were cut out of the budget (it was announced along with layoffs and other cuts). Morale, of course, was low.

So today they get the surprise bonus -- the whole thing, not part of it -- and a thank-you note from the publisher. Who says everything is doom and gloom in this business?

Here's hope it's a sign that other independent papers (this is a family-owned) are starting to see things turn around a little bit, or at least level off.

 

We're getting (miniscule) raises.

 

That's pretty huge and should be a big boost to the staff's morale there ... here's hoping this trend catches on ... ;-)

 

Three months after getting laid off, I found a new job for a little better money, and I got to hire more than a dozen people -- nearly all who had also been downsized. Felt good to put some folks back to work again.