Fuck the community and the fucking paper too.

The BBQ Pit
1

So I’m in newspaper, right? I enjoy being in newspaper. Our school paper doesn’t suck this year. Freshman year - one issue (loooooong fuckin sob story there…). Sophomore year - two issues (our advisor decided to quit halfway through the year. Not teaching, just newspaper.) This year - 6 fuckin’ issues so far. Considering we have basically no material resources, we’re kicking ass.

And now, the best in all of us comes out as we fill out editor applications for next year.

I swore I wasn’t going to even fucking apply. I sort of inherited the role of copy/layout co-editor this year, because no one else will fucking *edit[i/] anything (I swear, we get articles that haven’t even been spell-checked.) Great, I don’t really have the time to do it, but I manage.

So I was good, and didn’t fill out an application. The advisor asks why not, I say I know I won’t have time next year. She seems disappointed. Great, in homeroom this morning, she’s talking with the editor-in-chief about who should be in charge of what next year. Five minutes later, it’s finalized, she reads the list. Friend of mine got co-ed.-in-chief, great. Everything’s disturbingly peachy for that early in the morning.

“We don’t have a community editor yet, though. Does anyone want it?”

No. No one does, that’s why no one fucking asked for it! No one likes the community section because no one reads the articles, and no one wants to write them, beacuse they’re dull compared to, say, opinions or news (school news). No one likes the community section, but it’s one of those Things You Must Have.

“Come on, guys, we need someone. All it means is assigning articles!” Articles no one wants to fucking write, therefore, you end up writing four per issue, and not getting a byline for any of them.

The gremlins - the fucking Good-Deed gremlins that also made me volunteer to work for free over thes ummer at the township clerk’s office, an equally-‘from hell’ position - take over. “I guess, if no one else gets to you by the end of the week, I could kind of…I don’t really want it, but I can…” Because I’m gonna be a senior, right? And been in newspaper for my entire HS career, and like it, right? So I could do it…I guess…

“Great! We’ve got a community editor!”

Great, in-fucking-deed. Fine, I’ll be the fucking editor of the fucking orphan section. It’s new this year, and no one will fess up to suggesting it, but it Will Not Die.

No more than six and a half hours later, I run into the newspaper office to see if I’d left my math book there (which I didn’t, btw, and I’m fucking pissed over that, too). A very grim-looking ed. in chief is sitting talking with our advisor. Oh, hey, guess what? The current community editor just got suspended, therefore, can’t hold a leadership position in a club, therefore, can’t be an editor anymore. Isn’t that funny! You’re now editor of the section that no one fucking wants!

Oh, and the other copy/layout editor is quitting every fucking club he’s in now that he got into his 1st choice school, so I’m now in charge of that, too. Oh, and Adobe PageMaker isn’t fucking working on the good computer, so you need to layout the next issue which is already behind schedule on Ye Olde Peice of Crappe machine where the processing speed is envious of that of rocks.

Oh, and the meeting tomorrow is cancelled because there’s a staff meeting, so you’re on your own for getting people to help proofread. Or just do the whole 16-page paper yourself. Sorry.

My PMS-y reply (un-fucking-edited): One: I’m NOT A FUCKING COPY EDITOR. I don’t know where in the fuck that came from, but I’m NOT. Unless I get my name in the fucking staff box, I’M NOT DOING THIS SHIT for you. IT’s the fucking writer’s respsonability to at least spell check, or at fucking LEAST give me a copy on disk. I’m NOT going to retype every single fucking article, correct all the goddamned grammer and spelling fuck-ups, and do the fucking layout, on a fucking 486. I don’t have the fucking time.

Two: I don’t want to be an editor next year. If you really need me to, fine, I’ll be a fucking editor. I don’t get enough sleep anyone. I DON’T HAVE THE FUCKING TIME TO DO IT THIS YEAR. I’ve got the Fourth Quarter From Hell going on right now, I’ve got to finish 80+ pages of art research and 2 art projects by April 28th. I, unlike other people in newspaper, TAKE FUCKING HARD CLASSES. I don’t have five extra hours each night to compensate for the fact half our staff writes at the level best described as “Baboon strung out on PCP and being poked by a cattle prod”. I’ll edit, I’ll let you push me into a position I don’t want. Fine, I won’t even do crew for the one-act competition this spring, so I can spend more time on this. If you don’t fucking acknowledge that I’ve got no fucking reason to do all your work for you, then FUCK YOU.

2

I was editor-in-chief of my high school paper for part of my junior and all of my senior years, and dealt with a lot of the same nonsense…there were definitely a few people who were incapable of writing anything usable, but of course I couldn’t just tell them to submit their work directly to the circular file (I came close, though, a few times). Then there were the computer problems, and more importantly, fights with the school IT guys who kept upgrading the security and locking us out of our own folders.

So I’m in college now, and I do some copy editing for the college paper, and I have to say I immensely preferred the high school experience. For one thing, there was actual stuff for me to do. The writing this paper gets is good enough that the most I usually do to an article is add a few commas and rearrange a sentence. And most of the people on the staff are more competent and knowledgeable than I am, so I’ve lost my take-charge attitude and I just kind of sit there and get the work done and leave.

The high school paper was definitely a lot more ridiculous and hectic, but it was more fun too.

-Andrew L

3

Right on! I’m sitting in my office wondering what in the hell is wrong with my staff… (EIC for a college paper). They are acting like a bunch of monkies on crack, like usual. We have THE HARDEST time finding writers because we are a freaking engineering school. At least we get paid though!

But you are right! Doing layout on a 486 is SHITTY! Proofreading an unspelled checked article is SHITTY! Getting bitched at for unpopular editorials is SHITTY!

Just know that someone else completely understands!

4

Reminds me of my highschool paper experience.

A) They only let seniors in the class, therefore, we had about 10 people in the class, and that number steadily dropped through the year.

B) They didn’t assign positions to anyone. Basically this meant our paper was a hodgepodge of stories on “fashion,” drinking, sports, anything that particularly interested members of the class, or anything that our advisor felt strongly about.

C) The class wasn’t just newspaper. We also had to do some stuff with videoing things for the local access channel and the Senior Video. Oh, yeah, and the yearbook too, even though they had their own class for that. Our MIDTERM was laying out a freaking page of the yearbook.

D) People didn’t really want to work on the newspaper. This led to me writing a couple of stories per issue sometimes, editing a lot of them, and laying out most of them. I laid out 3/4 of one paper, and spent almost 30 hours over a weekend working on it once. Was anyone else there? Hah!

So, get used to it. Sure it sucks, just don’t count on it getting better.

5

Hey, NinjaChick, I don’t care about any recognition or whatnot, so if you want to email me a story or two to edit, I can probably have them back to you inside of a day. I’ve got a touch of free time and I enjoy editing:)

6

Can you quit?

What is the ‘community’ section? Can you think of any way you can wriggle it into something interesting, so people’ll write for it?

7

Start doing exposes on the evil City Council, do a disparaging review of the garden show, call for the resignation of the incompetent Chief of Police, do some investigative journalism on the quality of child care services and whether or not they are sexually molesting kids and/or worshipping the devil, probe into whether or not money exchanged hands inappropriately during any of the 15 most recent suburban development projects. Post the week’s arrests and convictions, everything that’s a matter of public record down at the courthouse, every Tuesday.

I’m sure someone will ask you to step down :slight_smile: Hey, and if not, maybe you’ll become a famous journalist.

8

’punha beat me to my suggestion. I was going to say you can send me stories to edit as well.

Where are you, [n]NinjaChick**? Makes me think of my high school paper and the mess it’s in nowadays. You don’t happen to be in PA do ya?

9

** iampunha **, thanks for the offer. Probably won’t need to take you up on it (bunch of my friends have study hall…or so they thing…{cue evil laughter}, I can get them to proofread).

Shade : Community is the section which handles local news stories. For some reason, news only covers things within the school and big news (ex: the war in Iraq, SCOTUS decision in the Cross-burning case, etc). Community is all the boring stuff - a new supermarket just opened and I swear, half the student body of my school is now employed there, we’re getting a new public library, things like that. I can’t quit, because despite what it seems (and common sense), I really like working on the staff, and I’m considering going into journalism someday. As I’m going to be one of four seniors on the staff, it’s kind of expected I’ll be an editor.

Hunter - I’m actually getting started on a feature on our campus security team, especially the guy in charge. He has this tendency to tell us he’s a ‘real cop’, and it recently came to light that he’s a retired cop, doesn’t actually have arrest power, and never even worked for our town’s PD (as he’d claimed). It’ll be fun, so maybe all is not lost.

Gorgon - not in PA, but I’m right near Philly (on the Jersey side - ick! ) The suckiness at my school isn’t a new thing - we’re actually making progress (as in, our advisor is competent and we do have a functional computer). 'Course, there is the fact that our last issue was delayed for a MONTH, because someone at central administration for the district let the check for the printer sit on their desk for a MONTH… :mad: “What do you mean, we haven’t paid you yet? We sent the check through central three weeks ago!” meanwhile… “Hey, is this check supposed to be sitting here in the bottom of this basket? It’s a month old…” :smack:

10

NinjaChick, if you’d like to see a cool thing that can be done in a community section, check out the Arcata Eye’s police log.