Sports Editor, Lincoln, Ill.

That's not what your sister... sorry, couldn't resist. Seriously, though -- the day after one of my best friends was laid off in Peoria, GateHouse announced $1.25 million in bonuses for six execs. The very next day.

Fuck. These. People. With a 79 syphillitic penises.

 

Hey, if you had my sister, more power to you....

 

Not that you have a travel budget. Or any time to travel (or sleep, for that matter).

 

I thought CNHI was the devil.

 

In its infinite wisdom, GateHouse decided to promote an idiot to be the new managing editor.

This person has 3 to 5 years of overall experience, has been in Lincoln just 6 months and he will be your boss, should you choose to accept this job. His personality is very, VERY dry and is cocky, smartass to boot.

This is what you get after forcing a 45-year veteran managing editor to retire.

 

Worked here during the transition from Copley to GateHouse and can vouch for everything said, but especially the merit of the managing editor. GateHouse at least used to pay overtime, but that was four years ago.

Is their slogan still "It's about you"?

Preps coverage obviously has taken a huge hit, but the deadlines also have shortchanged the dirt track speedway in town, which can get folks just as fired up as the Railers.

I'm hoping this isn't eventually dissolved into a "Lincoln edition" within the J-R.

 

Another tidbit...

The Courier's main boss at the SJ-R is relatively new. He came to Springfield from the east coast and has no clue about anything in the midwest.

 

Oh man! This reminds me of the time when they hired a new ME at my old shop who had no previous experience in daily newspapers.

His first day, he comes back to sports at 7 p.m. and says "So are you guys wrapped up for the night?"

At first we thought he had a real dry sense of humor. And then a few moments of silence passed. The horror... the horror.

 

I work at a shop that's a six days a week (Mon-Sat) and our deadlines are 2 p.m. daily, sports included. So you wanna talk about "the sports not being in the next day's paper" conundrum? That's been my personal hell for three years now. Our design is outsourced, and the design desks has five papers to put together, so of course, they're all cookie-cutter with no effort made at all. Plus, when there is a design error or a designer goes rogue and replaces your suggested headline with an atrocious one (which happens more than I wish it did) it looks like it's your fault.

 

Yep, I had to, um, "educate" a certain managing editor why I had nothing on half my pages at 9 p.m. one night (we were staffing a lot of night events).

Honestly, the older I get, the more I wonder why people put through themselves through stuff like this? I mean, the money can't be THAT good, can it?

 

On most days, we generally have a 6 p.m. deadline for the pages we design ourselves at my shop, (The papers are printed about thirty miles away.) so, with few exceptions, pretty much any sport that's not high school football or basketball at my shop doesn't get into the next day's paper.