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Shortest stint at a paper

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Riddick, Mar 13, 2007.

  1. Riddick

    Riddick Active Member

    I think this has been asked before, but what's the shortest stint some of you have been at a paper? And do you feel the move helped you or hurt you in the long run?
     
  2. SCEditor

    SCEditor Active Member

    At one gig, I stayed 10 months, which was exactly 10 months too long.
     
  3. Mystery_Meat

    Mystery_Meat Guest

    At one gig, I stayed four months, which was exactly 10 months too long.
     
  4. Idaho

    Idaho Active Member

    Two months.

    It was a start up weekly in a subrub. My first job after graduation and the paper folded. Guess that happens when the publisher's son-in-law ad sales team spends more time at the bar than on the phone or the streets. the publisher was an idiot, too. He got mad at me once for covering a baseball game at a school one block outside our circulation boundary featuring a school inside our circulation boundary.
     
  5. SF_Express

    SF_Express Active Member

    10 months, great place..just got a good offer to go back to the previous place.
     
  6. Smartwriter

    Smartwriter Member

    Six weeks. I just got out of college and as it turned out bit off more than I could chew.
     
  7. leo1

    leo1 Active Member

    one day.

    (not me, but a close friend).

    i know i posted this story on a thread like this before but it was a few years ago so here goes: a friend of mine was interviewing at big metro and suburban daily. she got the offer from suburban daily and couldn't get big metro to move the process along despite telling them that she needed to give suburban daily her answer. eventually she had to accept suburban daily's offer.

    so she told big metro editor her start date. at about 4 p.m. on her first day at suburban daily, editor of big metro calls her at the newsroom (mind you, this is before cell phones...the guy knew he was calling her at suburban daily's newsroom) and offers her the job at big metro. she feels awful and awkward about dissing suburban daily like this but what can she do? she accepts big metro's offer.

    she soon learned that this editor loved to fuck with people. the guy later got fired and is now editor at a tiny daily in bumblefuck, nowhere.
     
  8. reformedhack

    reformedhack Well-Known Member

    Ditto. Although my third week at my gig was rather easy ... for seven days, my section got chopped down to one daily inside page in the wake of 9/11 and a hurricane that blew through the area three days later. All of my reporters were temporarily reassigned to Armageddon duty, and three of my four copy editors were shipped to the news desk.

    It's kind of surreal to think of that period as "the good old days."
     
  9. Igor in CT

    Igor in CT Member

    One month in a suburb of a mid-sized Midwestern city.

    Managing editor and sports editor loved my clips and writing, but after three weeks, the ME was hammering everything I handed in and told me it was far different than what I showed them.

    I can honestly say this: it wasn't. When it got to the point that I was losing sleep and what little appetite I have with worry, I knew it was time to get out.

    Of course, I ended up in a JRC shop after that, so I don't know if I ended up better! ;D
     
  10. Rockbottom

    Rockbottom Well-Known Member

    Nine months, at a major metro. Didn't hanker being 49th on a 50-person totem pole.

    rb
     
  11. I spent the longest six months of my life in Montana for my first daily job. The short stint didn't hurt my career because I had spent more than six years at my first paper.
     
  12. Of course not. Then you couldn't browbeat them for not working as hard as you. :p
     
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