Thursday, February 13, 2003 "...and a good time was had by all."
It's early Thursday morning, so that must mean the wall I'm staring at is in the dingy basement offices of a college paper I will call Pravda. I don't mean to be so itchy about security culture, but one of the main reasons I had to delete a previous online journal was that some Pravda employees found out (based on my ungrammatical jabbings at the keyboard) that I did not think the sun rose and set out of their dewey pink anuses.
I realize that I'm not exactly hiding my identity here, but that's ok. The only reason the Pravda employees found my other journal is because a former friend had it in for me and decided it was her job to broadcast my bidness to anyone who could stare at a glowing screen. She wears band t-shirts and steal Adoral from her ADD pals.
So yeah, Pravda. My problem with it right now is that I hate it. It's not the worst job I've ever had by a long shot. I've had so many laughable shit jobs that I don't have a clear-cut victor in the "Worst Job Ever" title fight.
I edit Pravda. I never thought of myself as the type who does that kind of thing. I've been sneering at this publictaion since my rawest early days of freshman year, for one thing. Even at my most optimistic and naive, I knew the school weekly was for those with poor skin and posture. The articles were dull, the writing was bad, and I wanted no part of it. Every now and then there was an outstanding piece, and many more quietly competant ones ran every issue. Still, I'd come to this school (I will call it Dead Prez. U. in this and further blogs) to be what my freshman advisor called a "writing jock", not a plucky cub reporter.
Then at the end of last year, a friend decided to apply for the editorship of the [Fop], the school's monthly newsmagazine. In a moment of whatever is the opposite of laser-precise insight is, I decided to go for Pravda, just because it would be funny if she and I had a lock on the school media.
The irony of it all is that another candidate got the Fop, and is currently running it into the ground. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here in the newshole when I should be sleeping.
I really, really resent this job. I think it's because I feel like I have the freedom to do whatever I want, but only within an extremely restrictive framework. For one thing, Dead Prez. U. is a little-ass school. We've got something like 1200 undergrads and like, 4 grad students. We're located in a small town in an areaa of the country so rural that my house in suburban Delaware feels like Gay Paree in comparison. There ain't much news, son.
We scramble to fill twelve tabloid-size pages a week. Our budget is such that we can't attract reporters with money. Our reputation, as you may have gathered, is shitty. The writing jocks won't come near us unless they owe me a favor. That means our labor pool is the kids who are either too dumb to realize how unrewarding the job is, or so optimistic that they just don't care.
I don't mean to talk too much shit about the reporters, because they really do try, and I've seen some of them improve dramatically. I'd like to think this is because of my firm guiding hand, but it's probably more a case of practice paying off.
I get pissy about the ones who slack off and either have no concept of how to gather information ("You see, Doofus, what you do is, you ask people questions and write down their answers." {Reporter bursts into tears and gnaws at notebook.}) or haven't bothered to make more than a token effort to get a variety of sources, etc. Worse, though, are the ones who *try*. I mean, they really knock themselves out, and still turn in shit that's barely comprehensible. Heather Havrrilesky of the Rabbit blog did a bit where she translated a piece of her writing into Portugese and back again. It was sadly familiar. The hilariously mangled syntax, the non--words, and the poignant little stabs of readable declarative sentences that it engendered hit a little too close to home.
My plan is to ride this out for the rest of the school year, partially because I need the peanuts this job pays, otherwise the elephant will go hungry, and partially because it does have certain rewards. I do feel accompished and tough, even hard-bitten once I put each week's issue to bed. I like bossing people around and delegating authority. Still, some days, llike today, I feel like I just ain't got the power anymore.
posted by Frenz | 2/13/2003 04:43:00 AM
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