To Beantown and Back

That's not generally a defense in labor issues.

 

This guy flew.

 

That's an eight-hour day at my shop.

 

Yeah, but that doesn't diminish the impact of that much travel in such a short period of time. He had to wake up at around 3 a.m. and was going non-stop from there, arriving in Boston just in time to get to the arena about an hour before tipoff, and then landing in Chicago with barely enough time to pull into the arena moments before face-off. The average NHL hockey game lasts about 2.5 hours, so you figure by the time he edited and filed his photos and then packed up and got back in his car it was close to midnight, maybe 11:30. Your driving ability is going to definitely be impaired.

 

Maybe he took a cab home.

 

I think some of you are overreacting. I'm sorry, but if having a long day like that every once in awhile puts your life at risk, you need to live a healthier lifestyle. The human body can do wondrous things -- but making two flights and sitting and taking photos at two sports games isn't that strenuous. The people running the Boston Marathon are doing more to their body over a shorter period of time than this guy did.

I really liked the package, it was a cool way to make an apparently life-threatening situation more interesting.

As for taking 7600+ photos ... he shot at two games and shot before, during and after the trip. I'm not shocked he took a ton of photos.

 

These types of stories are a bore.

What does the audience care if the same guy covers or shoots both games, vs. two people doing one game each (and maybe doing a better, less fatigued job of it)?

This is something done for each other, those in our newsrooms and those in other newsrooms. And, maybe now, those in the executive suites, who will be happy about having one person do the jobs of two people.

It's a gimmick without much appeal. Would any of us have missed it, if the Tribune had simply done the job of covering the story -- rather than becoming part of the story?

Just like a lot of things made possible by technology, just because we can do something (oh, like tweeting from a kid's grave site) doesn't mean that we should.

I'm less concerned about the shooter dropping dead from exhaustion and stress than I am the "look at me" aspect of covering stuff this way. The games existed, it was physically possible to be at both thanks to jet travel and ... so what? A yawner.

 

I think running 20-30 extra photos from the game online (in full resolution) is a great idea. I agree, though, about the photog being part of the story.

 

No problem with running extra photos online. Those photo galleries are a great way to generate extra clicks without totally pissing off readers who have to click through five Web pages for a 20-inch story.

One shooter per game providing his non-published photos gets you there, without the dog and pony show of racing across the country like that DJ who did gigs in Chicago and L.A. (or was it Houston?) all those years. Tom Joyner, was it? First guy who did it, first time, that was worth a "hmmm." Each time since, it's just "I'm showing off here folks, and you wish you were me." Plus now, "Look how hard I'm working, boss, for just one paycheck."

 

and you'd be stunned at how little money he made for that day. [/sad crossthread]

 

Well, my first reaction was like yours Joe, that it was rather self-serving and I doubt the readers really care how it got done, but I decided held off on voicing that opinion.

I'm more concerned about how doing stuff like this, especially if you volunteer to, sets a precedent for management to just keep fucking you over and everyone else for that matter because now you've given them a concrete example to follow the next time they decide to emply slave-driving tactics and the next time they decide to lay more people off because one person can do the job of three.