the navel times and observer

I'm leaving you. And not by my choice. I don't really have an end of thoughts on this subject, so I'll start with the story.

Earlier this week the reporter covering the suburban cities around Joplin started talking to me very softly about taking over some of his assignments. Because the newsroom's lost as of today 6 reporters the entire staff is going to be taxed for production, and I saw that coming. I really was just waiting for an order to tell me that I was going to be taking on more assignments along with my regular work in Barton County and Pittsburg (for those of you who just began reading, my beat) but no editor had told me yet what those assignments would be.

Today I got into the office late (long story, in short I need to learn to wake up in the morning, among other things) and started doing whatever I could since all the public offices and most of the businesses are closed. When I arrived the metro editor, assistant metro editor and the managing editor were all in a meeting together, even though the assistant metro editor was off today and all of this week. I knew I was part of this discussion. After all, I'm now part of a very small group of reporters, it's not like my name wouldn't come up in the conversation).

Yeah, I still didn't see this coming.

My editor told me my beat was no more. I will no longer be covering Barton County and Pittsburg and my official duties will be completely taken over by the suburban Joplin beat. This is a wee bit of a shock when 3 months ago I asked the assistant metro editor (who apparently will now be our education reporter as well) what I should consider the Globe to be for people in Barton County. He said it should be the newspaper they go to for their news, for their local Barton County news.

People have and some will probably continue have subscriptions to the Joplin Globe, I really don't think anybody bought any subscriptions specfically after I started up here but hey, they got to see their cities on the front page a couple times and that's where I felt they needed to be. Particularly after that was backed up by my editors.

Apparently that is no longer our business. After the loss of 3 other regional reporters the Globe is only doing Joplin and the immediate area. We're sinking into our hole after 3 months ago the paper was all about getting into the area, that was even the topic of gossip 2 months ago because of all the efforts the Globe was taking to try to be the newspaper for essentially everyone in its coverage area.

Now we're just covering Joplin. Granted, I don't know the town that well, but from what I've seen I don't like Joplin. It's not very clean, it looks like business loop 70 (for the Columbians in the room) everywhere in town from what I've seen. The town has some redeemable qualities, but the town's a mess. The Globe building itself is an ugly black and gray concrete and metal grate disaster. And I get to live there now.

Quit? Not really in the cards. I still owe a lot of money to my kind parents for helping me make this move and I ca't afford to make another one in the near future. That and the Globe's been infinitely patient with me while I'm learning how to be a reporter. They've given me all the time I need and I wouldn't want to leave them high and dry while they're short on reporters. Not because I have any feelings for Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc., I feel abused by them because while the staff is shrinking the paper's also not allowed to hire anyone new.

Foremost I don't want to let down my fellow reporters. We will all be eating it in the next few weeks, months, because of the freeze and I couldn't afford for any of them to quit on me, I rely on all of them too much. Second are my editors, who have been so patient and have been willing to help me whenever I've needed them and to whatever degree I've needed them. They've worked hard and they're going to be worked harder like the rest of us.

So I'm sticking it out. I'm here and I'm not likely to get a reporting job that pays this well anywhere around here. I considered looking for jobs at, say, the Washington Missourian which comes at a good recomendation from a very trusted professor or the Southeast Missourian where I have a friend who's working as the education reporter and could probably help me find a job. I've also been advised by a friend at the Staunton, Va., News-Leader who has been strongly trying to persuade me to go out there that there is a job there. As stated, I can't afford a move, particularly not a move to Virginia.

The appeal of at least the Missouri papers is that they are small towns. Suburban beats, particularly when it means covering four towns, scares me now. I like my small towns, they're not complicated and everything is within a long walk of anything else at least within the city limits. There's not a bubbling source of daily news here, but there are always stories to work on and I'm just beginning to develop sources. I've put 10 weeks of my life into this town and I'm not anxious to leave it be.

I'm scared, I'm feeling a little abused by the corporation and I'm sad because I don't want to leave the sources here. I may not have any close friends that I'd hang out with outside of any professional discussion but I've gotten to know people here on the job and I don't want to leave them. I don't want to tell them I'm leaving. I only told two people so far and told them it was off the record, like that's gonna matter.

Anyway. Goodbye Lamar, I hardly knew you.

And, um, kicking? Well, at least keeling over, I suppose that's a start.

I'm up here, plugging at it, no really amazing stories today though I did spend my afternoon moving from liquor store to liquor store down and up Pittsburg. Nope, didn't buy anything, though the Boulevard holiday gift pack does look tempting I think that could have been just a wee bit unprofessional. I still don't know how people do this job, but I guess at some point in the future I'll get the hang of it.

I do, after all, feel better about my job performance, just a little better about it. After all, the editors haven't mentioned any dirty little words like "review" "canned" "your ass" etc. I've made some blunders, like tonight when my cell phone was on vibrate and my editor couldn't reach me after turning a story in at about 9:30 p.m.

Which leads me to my real subject: thank the Lord for patient editors. Very patient editors. They have forgiven me dozens of missed deadlines, late phone calls, corrections, adjustments, leaving them alone while avoiding telling them that I have no stories for them, etc.

So thanks, Missle System, Spinal Meningitis, Crank Shaft and Aerodynamic Oscillator (sorry, Andy).

Is serving me burgers.

For those who aren't "in the know" in 2001 a state representative named Martin "Bubs" Hohulin attempted in vain to remove KOMU, the Columbia NBC affiliate, from any connection with the University of Missouri after news director Stacey Woelfel ordered anyone appearing in front of the camera not to wear any sort of U.S. Flag pin or symbol when on the air. He was particularly concerned because Woelfel sent this order very shortly after Sept. 11.

In an editorial note: KOMU is the only news organization associated with the Journalism school that actually turns a profit, although it is not governed by the J-School. And does it ever profit. It's rather nice because other organizations, like the mighty Missourian (run by a seperate board) can always be counted upon to be in the red. Thus, for any money KOMU can bring to the J-School (not to mention attracting Broadcast J students, who can't get actual network reporting work within any other school) giving up that little goldmine would be stupid.

So, now that we're all caught up, I've been going to this small drive-up restaurant here in Lamar because they make a darn good burger and they're barely holding on to business anyway. Apparently it won't be open longer than January.

The reason being that Bubs, who owns the place with his wife, is now assisting state Sen. Vogel in Jefferson City and will be returning there when the General Assembly kicks off again for another couple months of legislation. That and they're going from day to day at the moment and are only open when they know they'll have business. Small restaurant goes out of business, that's a non-story. Unfortunately it does mean I'm stuck with far fewer options for a decent burger in town, and nowhere that would bother to offer anything other than American cheese. Sigh.

So today after I found out he was a former rep I asked "Bubs Hohulin, right?". He acknowledged, yes, having at that point repeated himself.

I said: "Mr. Hohulin, we have a relationship."
"How?"
"I was a freshman at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 2001."
"They must have hated me over there."
"Well, there's hate and then there's disagreement and they aren't the same thing."

Oddly enough the conversation didn't go much further. He said he had gotten about 6,000 letters telling him to keep at the university and about 1,000 letters asking him to stop. One of them you can find here, along with Mr. Hohulin's condescending response. I didn't mention the letter, though I told the author, a fellow 2001 freshman, about having found Mr. Hohulin.

I told him KOMU was the only part of the J-school that actually turned a dime. He said "yes, I know, and they're semi-autonomous, but I still wanted them to lose it." And preceded to close the window. Apparently not really interested in continuing that argument.

Thanks for the burger, Bubs!

So after hearing about a job opening in Marshfield (weekly, circ. 5,000 in Webster County) I began to seriously consider leaving the Globe. After all, this is a constant challenge and I'm not particularly happy because I'm frustrated at my workload which is miniscule compared to my fellow reporters there. In any case I got to the weekly reporters' meeting today to discover that another reporter (the fourth in five weeks) is leaving the Globe. None of them are leaving because they were mistreated.

I, who was ready to talk to my editor about whether or not they were going to can me at the Globe and thus leave me looking for other jobs if I didn't take the Marshfield, sat there stunned. I'm sure I was pale as a ghost. I knew I was shaking. When I talked to my editor afterward I started by saying "I had a Dr Pepper today, but I wish whiskey had been an option."

My editor told me they knew when they hired me that I was going to be green. Heh, ain't that the truth. This is the biggest lesson I've ever had in journalism. Four years of journalism taught me some good tricks, ethics and theory, but it didn't do squat in teaching me about working as a daily journalist. I asked her if she were to review me today what she thought they would do with me there at the newspaper. She told me they had no intention of firing me and felt I had imnproved lately and hoped I would continue to improve. They also suspected it would take me time to get my feet wet.

So I declined the Marshfield offer. A) I can't afford to move anyway, even if it is to a temporary situation at my grandparents' house before moving into an apartment of my own B) yeah, Marshfield was definitly going to pay less C) I don't quit many challenges (the only jobs I quit I quit because they were joe jobs on the way to my reporting career) and I feel like if I left now then I would be giving up on my opportunity to really get all I could out of this beat.

Thus, defiantly and resiliently. I am still here.

I don't know how on earth people manage to do this job. There are harder jobs, absolutely, but I don't see how people manage to do this job. My day:

8:40 a.m.: in the office trying to plug through the library for a backlog of stories without having a clue how to read the filing system
9:30 a.m.: call health department, receive assignment details from editor, file one brief condensed from a press release
10:00 a.m.: healthcare insurance plan meeting - unavoidable if i want health insurance next year (that is if I'm still here)
10:20 a.m.: edit long story with editor, I guess this took about an hour
11:30 a.m.: file two more briefs based off of a press release and a calendar at a library, made one phone call to confirm some information about one brief
Noon?: continued to work on briefs, put a photo request together for a story this afternoon, confirmed that I'd be writing another feature in the office, got a telephone question answered
1 p.m.: editor mentions something about a meeting today that I knew about a week ago but didn't mention because I didn't know if it'd just be publicity for the company
1:03 p.m.: duck out of office to drive to Lamar to cover what was left of this meeting
2:00 p.m.: arrive in Lamar at the meeting
3:15 p.m.: finished observing the remainder of the meeitng and spoken with farmers and company representatives
3:15 p.m. - 4 p.m.: complete a few rounds at the police department, city hall and county offices, got an idea for one more feature story
4-5 p.m.: arrived at dance studio for a belly dancing lesson that got stalled in the middle because of two wasps hovering around the room. I killed one, the photographer and the teacher and I helped kill the other. There was much rejoicing.
5 p.m. - 5:15 p.m.: got telephone numbers from 8 underage girls and a married woman to call them back for interviews because I had to file the meeting story by 5:30
5:20 p.m.: arrived in library, called editor to ask for a 5:45 deadline so I could finish the story, pounded story out as fast as I could, didn't have time to check a third party on the company's numbers so I ended up writing a free publicity piece
6:00 p.m.: just trying to jab on one more quote, editor calls to ask where story is
6:10 p.m.: filed small brief on results of county commission meeting

Now I have to call those people from the dance class to file the story tomorrow. I have to call two representatives from two hospitals again tomorrow because they didn't bother to try to reach me today and I have to figure out where to find hunters to talk to them about youth hunting that doesn't involve standing over the gun counter at a store somewhere for hours until someone talks to me, because with at least one other project to finish because it's getting sickly late, one person i didn't get to call back friday, a new feature profile to write, and a second feature to write which I found today I simply don't have time to sit and wait at a gun counter.

I've got plenty more rounds to do tomorrow while trying to find more daily stories for the next day so hopefully (said with a smirk) I'll have another story to write tomorrow. Today my one piece will end up being about 9 inches (very small) and the other may be as long as 15 inches if I'm lucky. At least that's the length I'll write it to.

Sorry to bitch but how do people do this job???

It's a dirty word. But there's a lot of times where I feel like I'm speaking out of both sides of my mouth. Sometimes it's intentional. Sometimes I'd rather lie than speak what's really on my mind and eventually it's going to eat me alive.

No, it's not frequent, but I remember most sharply the times I did it.

Lately I'm worried that I gave two impressions when talking to a friend about partying. I've done my share of drinking, nothing dangerous, I don't drink with strangers. In any case I agreed with my friend that yes, sometimes losing yourself in alcohol can be fun within reasonable limits. I also agreed with her today that sometimes you need to sit back. I was in both positions, there are positives to both, but I feel like I was speaking out of two sides of my mouth.

With everything else, so it goes. I'm still trying to manage this beat.

On the plus side: went out to a symphony concert tonight, good times.