USA Today on this sorry business

Great story, Frank...........And great move by the SE.

 

Great points. And anybody who says there aren't hardworking, news-breaking people in TV and radio is an idiot.

But -- and I say this with great respect, because you're a much more accomplished journalist than me -- the fact remains that there aren't very many newspapers who get all their information from the local TV station.

There are a LOT of TV and radio stations whose newsgathering consists of examining that day's local paper and skimming USA Today.

 

Our paper and a local affiliate are owned by the same company, so we're constantly hit upon for "convergence." Most of the time, that means doing stuff for the TV station with nothing in return. But they're good people over there and they do work hard to get their own stuff. However, I can't say the same for one of the other affiliates, which several times has been caught flat-out lifting features from our sports section (stuff they couldn't have gotten anywhere else). Our ME wrote them a letter, no response. He wrote a column on it. No response. They still do it, and there is no recourse. One of us steals something from another paper without attribution, and we're pilloried (and rightfully so). TV or radio steals from papers, and it's ignored. Why is this?

 

Hey, I don't work in your area.

 

But you look so familiar...

 

Starman had a great story about this.

 

Are there any who do?

 

Hey, anything's possible.

 

When I read stories like this, about job cuts, etc., etc., I guess it just makes me bitter about the business I chose. I would love to stay in this forever, but I know that as the job market continues to shrink that supply-and-demand for jobs dictates that the pay is never going to get any better than it is now, and that's just not fair to my family or myself to stick around just because the job is my passion. There are other ways to fulfill that, I guess, freelancing and so forth.

It just kills me sometimes, though.

 

Right, right. What are we going to do without yesterday's news? Elliotte's right. I've said it before-- we are heavily dependent on the WIRES and on VIDEO FEED SERVICES.

More and more I'm noticing that pile of newspapers on the assignment desk hasn't been touched.

Some of the morning shows are guilty of rip-n-read, but mostly it's traffic and weather in the morning now. If it happens during the day, it's on the late news. For you guys, it's in tomorrow's paper. Sorry, just tellin' it like it is.

 

I can tell when a sports talk show has a host who relies upon the paper for the daily agenda. On more than one occasion I have heard the Sports Update guy read my story word for word and not attribute.

I also believe Elliotte and Lugnuts know of which they speak.