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You're on deadline ... and an emergency strikes

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by kingcreole, Jan 3, 2007.

  1. KJIM

    KJIM Well-Known Member

    But who determines if it's a crisis?

    Sure, anything medically happens to a child, it's a no-brainer. But most situations aren't so cut and dry.

    But what if it's your teen's principal calling, demanding an audience? The family pet dies and your 9-year-old is inconsolable? Your live-in girlfriend's father dies suddenly? Or your boyfriend of three months has an emergency appendectomy and you're the only ride to the hospital? Or even something relatively like your car breaks down on the way to the high school finals and there's no time to send anyone else?

    What happens when you and your editor differ as to what's a crisis?
     
  2. BillyT

    BillyT Active Member

    OK, true story.

    Jan. 9, 1986 (I know this because my daughter turns 20 next week).

    Girl named Tracy Lis, who later played at Providence, played basketball at a local high school. She was a great player, and her coach just turned her loose as far as scoring went, and she was breaking records left and right.

    We figure she's gonna score her 2,000th point that night, so I go to the game. She does, and I am interviewing her later.

    Additional fact: My wife's with me because she's very pregnant (OK, I suppose you're pregnant or you're not. But it was almost time).

    I am interviewing the girl after the game, chatting as I usually do.

    Wife: Billy we need to go now.

    Billy: I need a couple more minutes.

    Wife: *Now* I said.

    Billy: Oops.

    Long story short, happy healthy baby, everything checked out, I went home and filed at about 2 a.m. Fortunately, this happened before we went AM.
     
  3. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    Wow, that sucks. I wouldn't have gone for the gun, but I definitely would have had a nice, cathartic meltdown and given my co-workers a show on the way out the door.
     
  4. SportsDude

    SportsDude Active Member

    Sounds like a good reason to own one, myself.
     
  5. kingcreole

    kingcreole Active Member

    An appendectomy, if not treated, can be fatal, so I'd say that's a good reason. Family pet dies and Susie is bawling for hours? That can wait until the next day. Unless your SE says to go home.
     
  6. RFB-Boy

    RFB-Boy Member

    This point was brought up earlier, but it's the one that popped into my head right away. We write about sports. What could be more trivial? If we're talking about health and well-being of the people we love, they have to come first. After all, there'll be another game (after all, they even play the Super Bowl more than once) and 364 more nights in the year to coddle our careers. Anyone indecent enough to not understand that needs his/her human card taken away.
     
  7. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    I agree with most of that, except the idea that our job is less important than others because we write about sports. I take sports writing seriously and I think most of the journalists who have any success do the same. That whole insignificant, toy-department attitude is crap.
     
  8. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Yep. Gotta agree with OOP on that particular statement.

    If sports were insignificant, there would not be so much attention placed on it. If sports were insignificant, there would not be so much money invested in it. If sports were insignificant, there would not be so much emotion invested in it. If sports were insignificant, millions and millions of people would not attend sporting events every day, every month, every year.

    Sports is NOT life and death. Let's not confuse things.

    But sports IS significant. It is a significant part of our culture, and therefore a significant part of our lives. There is nothing insignificant about covering sports for a living -- and covering sports for a living does not make me any less of a professional.



    ... That said, the people you love should come before anything. Including work. Including sports.
     
  9. RFB-Boy

    RFB-Boy Member

    Word. Didn't in any way mean to imply I think of this career as insignificant. If I did, I wouldn't be doing it.

    But if we're talking about the people we love, everything else is trivial.

    The whole toy department attitude is crap, I agree. Our profession has a larger impact on more people than most do, and if I'm up on my stats, sports is still the most-read section after A1. We get a glimpse into all aspects of humanity in all types of situations from extreme duress to great joy. Then, in part, we get to tell people how those aspects played out and why it's important that they did. That's news, just as much as anything else in print is. In part, it's storytelling. That's been going on since man first communicated, so there is great significance there. Didn't mean to imply otherwise.
     
  10. boots

    boots New Member

    That's fucked up. "Distracted" is another one of those common journalism phrases when translated means we were looking to fuck you up the ass for a while, you just provided us with a way to do it.
    I'm glad you got over it Starman.
    Another word that editors like to use is "quality" of work.
     
  11. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Instead, "Starman Justice"... that well worn phrase you all know and love, was borne.
    And now you know... the REST of the story...


    Page 3....
     
  12. Lugnuts

    Lugnuts Well-Known Member

    Starman, I hope you're in a better place. Man that sucks.

    Re: Sports and the toy department. I never said it was the toy department.... but let's call it what it is. It's not as important as war coverage, sorry, it just ain't.

    I think younger people in the biz tend to over-value what we do. As you get into your 30's (generalizing here), you quit rationalizing why you (a smart person) decided to use your brainpower to make a living writing/talking about games.... and you start to come to terms with it.

    A know a woman who's a celebrity booker/producer on a big Hollywood awards show. This woman has a sister who travels the world on missions helping the poor...

    So I met their mom one day. And the mom said, "I have one child who saves the world, and the other entertains it. I couldn't be prouder."

    My point: There's nothing wrong with writing about games for a living, but let's not pretend we're saving lives.
     
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