Shortest stint at a paper?

What's the shortest amount of time you've been at one paper? Why did you leave?

 

One week. Had major issues with paper's (lack of) ethics.

 

I was editor of a relatively new (and now defunct) five-day daily for a few months once. Worked 5 p.m.-5 a.m. Sunday through Thursday (Friday AM). Some positives, but mostly not. Publisher seemed like a nice enough guy in life, but was an absolute dickhead to work for.

In a famous story to those who know me, I was on my way to the Northeast to interview for a desk job at a now-defunct big city daily in an effort to escape the madness. When I checked into the airport, there was a phone call waiting for me at the ticket desk. "SF, this is Julie Reporter. I don't know if this is going to affect your trip or not, but Mr. Publisher just held a staff meeting and announced that you've been fired."

Yeah, it had a bearing on the trip.

I got lucky, though. When I got to the hotel in the big city, I had a call waiting for me there, and that guy wanted to make sure I didn't take the big city job until I talked to him first. I was unemployed for like a week, and the dickhead's paper went under not that long after.

And that was my experience running my own newspaper.

 

I spent about three months as M.E of a community weekly.

My mistake, I really didn't ask the right questions going in. An important lesson.

 

Wait a minute, they announced in a meeting that you had been fired BEFORE you knew?

 

Not that unusual, sadly.

 

Indeed. I learned from that reporter.

 

does stuff like that go on in any other industry? why do newspapers behave in such ways?

I came into this business from the outside, having worked in publishing and graphic design. while confidentiality agreements and such are commonplace there, you don't see the type of stuff that I've heard about in this business. one that comes to mind is having to sign an agreement stating that, if terminated, you won't approach a former co-worker for 12 months thereafter. or being canned by new owners and being escorted from the building within an hour after years on the staff.

makes me think this business is run by carny folk.

 

Oh, you've got some fine folks running this industry...like the dickbag who wanted employees to turn in doctor's excuses after their sick days. I can't get over announcing a guy's firing at a meeting, before he heard he was getting canned. That shit happened to me, I would get the best labor lawyer I could find and sue the shit out of the dump.

 

You know what? It was such an odd thing from start to finish, I had two job offers when my plane returned home, and I was just relieved to get out of there. A failed experiment.

The newspaper "plant" was a big house on the ocean, with a pool and a boat dock. It was a great area. But the job sucked.

 

Six months in Jamaica. I could've hacked it there longer, but I had smoked about five years worth of really good ganja and was burned out, to say the least. It was my first foray out of the country, and I probably needed to get back here for sanity's sake. But man, thems was a good, productive six months.

 

My first job out of college, I should have quit within the first week because it was nothing like what had been described to me. Instead, I stuck it out for about a year and get the hell out of town.

Miserable, miserable year.