soft news
6:58 p.m. & 2008-01-12

This is a first for me: the only drama currently in my life is not due to boys or friends. I finally have a future-career related complaint!

I wrote about how that girl stole my story. Well, the stolen-story made FRONT PAGE FEATURE, which I wouldn't be upset about if she had not 1) stolen it and 2) wrote a shitty article.

In journalism, we measure articles in "inches" (number of words/180). A normal article is about 12-15 inches. Her article? A sad 9 inches chock full of heavy quotes. Basically, the story was horrible. But it made FRONT PAGE. I later found out that it was because it was the only story with decent artwork (a provided photo--apparently she can't even get a staff photo). My story, on the other hand, which was 18 inches/well-written, was on page 7...above the classifieds.

There may be some people out there who think that my annoyance comes from jealousy: not true. I am actually surprisingly honest when it comes to my talent in comparison to others. I know that I am one of the best at the paper, but of course there are people better than me. This girl, however, is not. It took her two quarters to become a staff writer...it took me three weeks. And, she has had problems in the past, while I have always produced quality work. Hence my annoyance at being placed above the classifieds. So now people can read about an interesting art exhibit while also looking for a job! Yay!

Thankfully, my story for Friday ran on the third page...but was severely cut and did not run the additional blurbs that included the synopses of the movies playing at the event I was covering. I had made a good relationship with my sources, but I e-mailed one of them about a day ago and no word back yet. I am really worried that they are upset about the placement/re-positioning of the articles. That is understandable, as the paper has a habit of marginalizing culture, but I really have no control over that. Of course I would put my own stories front page, center...but unfortunately, the editors do not always feel the same way. I had several stories on the front page last year, but the new editors are apprently more into "hard" (murder, scandal, etc...) news than "soft" news (culture). Boo to that.

Other than that, life has been dull. Writing, interviewing, going to classes...hanging out ocassionally. Last night Ash came over for awhile to eat and watch Children of Men. Then, Em, her and I went to see Juno, which I had already seen, but didn't mind seeing again. It was super-cute of course and fun. Afterwards we went to O'Betty's and ate nice, cheesy cheese fries. Then I came home and actually STUDIED at like, 3 a.m. I know, weird.

Today has been pretty exciting. Caitlin, Em and I went to get our noses pierced and it was quite the adventure! I will write more about that later, though, as I must get ready for the night...

previous & next