There’s a certain je n’est sais quoi to how I feel about the death of Tim Canavan last Monday ― not pleasure or relief, but not exactly grief either.
Tim Caravan was the editor in chief at WCN Newspapers, where I had the misfortune to work for nearly two-and-a-half years, from May 2002 until October 2004. It was in many respects the worst job I have ever had, a distinction due in some part to Tim and the way he treated his staff and ran the editorial department.
At the time I started, Tim was undergoing treatment for cancer. He already had lost his hair and much of his weight because of the chemotherapy, and was in the middle of a rather grueling battle against his own body that had just included brain surgery to remove a tumor that had metastasized there. In the months that would follow, Tim would get a clean bill of health at one bioscan, only for something new to show up six months later. Surgeons removed an adrenal gland and even part of his lung, but ultimately were unable to remove the cancer. He died last Monday, surrounded by his siblings and their families.
Reading the article that WCN Newspapers ran on its web site about his passing, you can read the sort of comments you hear whenever somebody dies: what a nice fellow he was, how dedicated to his profession he was, and how he worked tirelessly to make the world a better place. There were even a few anecdotes I imagine were supposed to be heartwarming, to show how decent he was.
Usually when I read this sort of story, if it’s about someone I know, my mind flashes with one burst of insight after another. So that’s why he was like that, I think. Aha! That’s the aunt he always talked about. That sort of thing. With Tim’s obituary, I might as well have been reading an account about a complete stranger.
The Tim I knew was none of those things. He was neither inspiring in his commitment to community journalism, nor a tireless crusader for justice. He was not, ultimately, either honest to a fault nor trustworthy, nor was he professional in the extreme, nor was he a genius about his job as some would have him.
The Tim I knew was far less inspiring an individual. He was, in many regards, a man who preferred sticking to something he was competent at but long ago had ceased to enjoy, over taking a risk, moving on to something new, and learning something new. What was worse, he discouraged others from moving on, had a low threshold for disagreement and at times engaged in overtly unethical or even illegal conduct.
Some of my dislike for Tim surely is personal. At one point, after I had expressed an interest in leaving my post as managing editor for something a bit more challenging and interesting, he promised me a post in another office, where I would be in charge of training the editorial staff there and shaking things up to improve the product ― and then broke his promise and gave the post to someone else who had less experience and lower salary expectations.
He ran the newspapers with a heavy hand, keeping editors understaffed, underpaid and overworked on antiquated equipment. Another editor and I once tracked our hours at averaging between 50 and 60 hours a week, including marathon duties on Monday and Tuesday, in a job where at $35,000 a year, I was one of the best-paid employees. Those lengthy hours were necessary because we lacked reporters; as an editor with two newspapers, I was required to write four to five stories, in addition to my editorial duties, which typically involved editing eight to ten stories by my reporter, writing four editorials, assigning news photographs, and copy editing the entire contents of the newspaper. Those who complained found that not only were their complaints ignored, they either were criticized themselves, or in some cases were strongly encouraged to leave. One reporter actually was fired while he was on disability.
The worst breach of ethics came after I had left to become a stay-at-home father. A member of the school board in one of our communities had been videotaped in a tryst in a public park, and a copy of that video had found its way into the hands of an editor, who was set to write a story about it. Tim axed the story ― a debatable decision, but in some ways respectable ― and then called the board member in question, explained about the videotape, and then promised not to run it if the board member were to resign.
Where I come from, that’s called blackmail. It’s not an admirable trait in anyone, least of all in a journalist.
I never found myself inspired by Tim, and I never felt particularly close to him. But when I heard that he had died, I considered going to his funeral just to pay him the last respects he was due as a human being.
It’s been a busy year for death in my circle. This year I’ve watched as friends buried an infant son, as my cousins buried their mother, and as my aunt buried her husband. One theme has run constant through all the funerals: We are all made of corruptible mortal flesh, and that makes us more alike than our differences separate us.
Tim Caravan was many things I wish I were not, and would hope that I could never be: scared to try something new, and resentful of those who aren’t; blind to what others endure to bring his vision of efficiency into existence, and in the end so sure of the rightness of his actions that he is blind to how obviously corrupt they are.
Showing posts with label wcn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wcn. Show all posts
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Friday, January 06, 2006
getting over it
Today I attended a wake for a friend of mine, and I find it is stirring a number of unpleasant memories for me.
A wake in this case refers to the tradition of taking a co-worker out for lunch on his last day on the job, to celebrate his good fortune and wish him well for the future. Joe Sorrentino worked as a photographer for WCN Newspapers for about three years, the last two as chief photographer. He and I got to know each other during the nearly two-and-a-half years that I worked there, so when he called to tell me last weekend that he had been fired, I was as excited as he was.
WCN was not a good place to work. When I was there, a co-worker of mine and I tracked our hours as averaging between fifty and sixty a week, just to complete our basic responsibilities, which included editing the newspapers, writing their editorials, and writing four to six news stories for one of the papers. A typical starting salary for an editor was $24,000; for a reporter, it was less than $20,000. In its Union County office, WCN published seven newspapers, with a good many more published in three other offices in Essex County.
The standards of the company ranged from abysmal to nonexistent. The editor in chief regularly hired new people fresh out of college with no experience, provided no training, and gave them editorial responsibility for two papers. Stories often were so lopsided that they included only one source, and I had a reporter at one point who couldn't even write a sentence. I even caught her plagiarizing stories three times in the same four-week period, and they still wouldn't fire her. After I left, a friend of mine quit when the editor in chief refused to let him run on a valid news story on the grounds that it would have negative repercussions for a school board member in Hillside.
For my first eighteen or twenty months, I swear I did the best job I could. I diligently covered meetings, made phone calls, and dug up good stories. When one of the Board of Education members was charged with beating up a student in another municipality, I wrote a front-page story on it. When the school board made a first-of-its-kind appeal of a defeated schools construction plan, I covered it so thoroughly that the administration started asking me if there had been any new developments. I wrote hard-hitting editorials, pioneered innovations in the layout, and gave other editors and reporters ideas for their papers.
Eventually, I wore out. I had busted my hump digging up stories, managing in the process to raise the ire of several prominent officials in my coverage area, and still I had nothing to show for it. There was no raise, a promotion I had been promised was given to someone else who earned less, and there was no help to be had in reducing the workload.
Worst of all was ownership. WCN Newspapers is one of the few remaining privately owned community newspaper chains, held by four siblings named Daniel, Cyann, Royal and Patrick, whose father, William, started it about thirty years ago. The siblings work about forty hours a week each, rake in hefty salaries and regularly eliminate personnel, close offices or refuse to replace broken equipment when they want a raise or see profits decrease, and treat their employees with inexcusable condescension.
From what I heard today, WCN has rolled several of its newspapers together, so that intsead of having seven Union County papers, it publishes four, each covering more municipalities. Publishing fewer newspapers was the pretext Daniel used for laying off Joe, which of course means that more quality news events are going to go unphotographed and the quality will drop still further. Additionally, the editorial pages of all four newspapers will run in common, which means they've all lost their voice in their communities. The papers are poorer for it, and so are the places they cover.
A wake in this case refers to the tradition of taking a co-worker out for lunch on his last day on the job, to celebrate his good fortune and wish him well for the future. Joe Sorrentino worked as a photographer for WCN Newspapers for about three years, the last two as chief photographer. He and I got to know each other during the nearly two-and-a-half years that I worked there, so when he called to tell me last weekend that he had been fired, I was as excited as he was.
WCN was not a good place to work. When I was there, a co-worker of mine and I tracked our hours as averaging between fifty and sixty a week, just to complete our basic responsibilities, which included editing the newspapers, writing their editorials, and writing four to six news stories for one of the papers. A typical starting salary for an editor was $24,000; for a reporter, it was less than $20,000. In its Union County office, WCN published seven newspapers, with a good many more published in three other offices in Essex County.
The standards of the company ranged from abysmal to nonexistent. The editor in chief regularly hired new people fresh out of college with no experience, provided no training, and gave them editorial responsibility for two papers. Stories often were so lopsided that they included only one source, and I had a reporter at one point who couldn't even write a sentence. I even caught her plagiarizing stories three times in the same four-week period, and they still wouldn't fire her. After I left, a friend of mine quit when the editor in chief refused to let him run on a valid news story on the grounds that it would have negative repercussions for a school board member in Hillside.
For my first eighteen or twenty months, I swear I did the best job I could. I diligently covered meetings, made phone calls, and dug up good stories. When one of the Board of Education members was charged with beating up a student in another municipality, I wrote a front-page story on it. When the school board made a first-of-its-kind appeal of a defeated schools construction plan, I covered it so thoroughly that the administration started asking me if there had been any new developments. I wrote hard-hitting editorials, pioneered innovations in the layout, and gave other editors and reporters ideas for their papers.
Eventually, I wore out. I had busted my hump digging up stories, managing in the process to raise the ire of several prominent officials in my coverage area, and still I had nothing to show for it. There was no raise, a promotion I had been promised was given to someone else who earned less, and there was no help to be had in reducing the workload.
Worst of all was ownership. WCN Newspapers is one of the few remaining privately owned community newspaper chains, held by four siblings named Daniel, Cyann, Royal and Patrick, whose father, William, started it about thirty years ago. The siblings work about forty hours a week each, rake in hefty salaries and regularly eliminate personnel, close offices or refuse to replace broken equipment when they want a raise or see profits decrease, and treat their employees with inexcusable condescension.
From what I heard today, WCN has rolled several of its newspapers together, so that intsead of having seven Union County papers, it publishes four, each covering more municipalities. Publishing fewer newspapers was the pretext Daniel used for laying off Joe, which of course means that more quality news events are going to go unphotographed and the quality will drop still further. Additionally, the editorial pages of all four newspapers will run in common, which means they've all lost their voice in their communities. The papers are poorer for it, and so are the places they cover.
My prediction based on all this is that when William, the company founder, dies, his children are going to sell the place as soon as they reasonably can. Royal as much as admitted a few years ago at the Iowa Press Association awards banquet that none of them wanted to follow their father into the newspaper business, but they weren't given a choice. It's a shame that their dislike of the business has channeled itself into such disregard for the people who make them their fortune.
At one point, a group of us discussed forming a union and did some investigation to see if it would be worthwhile to take the plunge. To this day, my big regret is that we didn't push ahead. It's an awful place to have worked. I still get angry thinking about it, even though I left the place in October 2004.
I wish I could put this behind me, forgive and forget, but something about that place won't let me let it go. Chirst forgive the hardness of my heart, and let me be more like him.
Friday, October 29, 2004
Out of the fire: My last days in the newsroom
Well, it's done. Today I wrote my last two editorials, handed in my office key and said my goodbyes. Time and God alone will tell what I accomplished by being at WCN.
It was a long, draining haul, but I'd like to think that some good came of it. An editor with the same ridiculous work load as me has given notice; another told me he plans to give notice in two more weeks. And I know of two different reporters who have refused promotions because they want more money than the company is willing to give them. (That apparently caught management off-guard, but I find it encouraging. People are catching on that we get change when we stop playing by the rules that other people set.)
My reporter is one of those who has been telling them that she's not taking my job unless they pay her better for it than they've offered. I may have earned a reputation as an agitator.
In my editorials and columns, I strove to uphold basic truths about our obligations to care for the needy. I issued calls for change, and sometimes that alone was enough to stir other people to action.
I made fun of Elmo in front of more than 100,000 readers.
I trained two reporters and made them stronger writers, shored up two sagging newspapers and gave them renewed vision and respect within the community, by bringing in local columnists, and making the papers into a voice for the community and within the community.
It still angers me that the owners work only 40 hours a week, take the inflated salaries that they do, and then have the gall to say that there's no money in the budget to provide better resources, hire more than a skeleton crew or pay us better.
That's just bad business. If you want your venture to succeed, you need to give your workers a living wage commensurate with the work they do, and not just live off their labor. "A worker is worthy of his hire" and "Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain."
It's done, though. My wife starts full-time at Rutgers on Monday. It turns out that she actually will make more than I have been, and she's going to get better benefits than I had too. (And there's no commute, since she can walk to work, which means we'll save on gas.)
Thanks to everyone who's put up with me through this. It's been a long and torturous road, but it's finally over.
It was a long, draining haul, but I'd like to think that some good came of it. An editor with the same ridiculous work load as me has given notice; another told me he plans to give notice in two more weeks. And I know of two different reporters who have refused promotions because they want more money than the company is willing to give them. (That apparently caught management off-guard, but I find it encouraging. People are catching on that we get change when we stop playing by the rules that other people set.)
My reporter is one of those who has been telling them that she's not taking my job unless they pay her better for it than they've offered. I may have earned a reputation as an agitator.
In my editorials and columns, I strove to uphold basic truths about our obligations to care for the needy. I issued calls for change, and sometimes that alone was enough to stir other people to action.
I made fun of Elmo in front of more than 100,000 readers.
I trained two reporters and made them stronger writers, shored up two sagging newspapers and gave them renewed vision and respect within the community, by bringing in local columnists, and making the papers into a voice for the community and within the community.
It still angers me that the owners work only 40 hours a week, take the inflated salaries that they do, and then have the gall to say that there's no money in the budget to provide better resources, hire more than a skeleton crew or pay us better.
That's just bad business. If you want your venture to succeed, you need to give your workers a living wage commensurate with the work they do, and not just live off their labor. "A worker is worthy of his hire" and "Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain."
It's done, though. My wife starts full-time at Rutgers on Monday. It turns out that she actually will make more than I have been, and she's going to get better benefits than I had too. (And there's no commute, since she can walk to work, which means we'll save on gas.)
Thanks to everyone who's put up with me through this. It's been a long and torturous road, but it's finally over.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
woo-hoo!
Nothing definite yet, but it looks like my wife is going to be getting a full-time job at Rutgers, with full benefits. That will mean a slight drop in income, but there won't be all this extra mileage on the car, or our contribution to a mediocre health plan. With some free-lancing and minor P.R. opportunities, it might even work out to about even.
It also means she'll be getting experience and probably some field work in the field she has a master's degree in. She wouldn't have had this talk with her lab supervisor if I hadn't convinced her we just needed to up and up leave WCN.
On a lesser note, I got to tell my supervisor off today. (Not really. I'm being melodramatic, but I did politely and respectfully convey my disgruntlement in a nonconfrontational manner, and I got my point across.) The look on his face was priceless. I don't think it ever had occurred to him that other people might have been interested in the two posts they filled recently (associate editor and flagship managing editor), and that they might have angered or insulted employees by not advertising the posts before filling them.
Honestly, I don't know what the problem is with these people. I said last year in a meeting with the editor in chief and again with one of the owners that I was at a point of burnout and needed a major change. It's not something I've tried to keep secret, and I've made several suggestions of things I could do that would have been a better match for my interests and abilities than what I have now. (Naturally, as I went over some of my areas of concern/frustration today, Mark's whole suggestion was to spread the disease around by giving some of my writing responsibilities to the Cranford reporter.)
So now it looks like I might be able to give them two weeks' notice on Friday, about two weeks ahead of when I had planned to. And we'll have a stronger plan than we originally had hoped.
God willing, of course. The lab supervisor has to crunch the numbers properly and make sure she can give the job to my wife, but she seemed fairly confident of it when they spoke today.
Strictly speaking, I suppose there's no woo-hoo until it actually happens, but just the prospect has buoyed my spirits tremendously
It also means she'll be getting experience and probably some field work in the field she has a master's degree in. She wouldn't have had this talk with her lab supervisor if I hadn't convinced her we just needed to up and up leave WCN.
On a lesser note, I got to tell my supervisor off today. (Not really. I'm being melodramatic, but I did politely and respectfully convey my disgruntlement in a nonconfrontational manner, and I got my point across.) The look on his face was priceless. I don't think it ever had occurred to him that other people might have been interested in the two posts they filled recently (associate editor and flagship managing editor), and that they might have angered or insulted employees by not advertising the posts before filling them.
Honestly, I don't know what the problem is with these people. I said last year in a meeting with the editor in chief and again with one of the owners that I was at a point of burnout and needed a major change. It's not something I've tried to keep secret, and I've made several suggestions of things I could do that would have been a better match for my interests and abilities than what I have now. (Naturally, as I went over some of my areas of concern/frustration today, Mark's whole suggestion was to spread the disease around by giving some of my writing responsibilities to the Cranford reporter.)
So now it looks like I might be able to give them two weeks' notice on Friday, about two weeks ahead of when I had planned to. And we'll have a stronger plan than we originally had hoped.
God willing, of course. The lab supervisor has to crunch the numbers properly and make sure she can give the job to my wife, but she seemed fairly confident of it when they spoke today.
Strictly speaking, I suppose there's no woo-hoo until it actually happens, but just the prospect has buoyed my spirits tremendously
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
It's time to leave hell behind
There's a great storyline in Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" where the King of Dreams journeys into hell to free a woman he sent there for spurning his love from endless years of torment.
Dream arrives at the gates of hell, expecting opposition, and finds instead silence. To everyone's dismay, Lucifer Morningstar has decided to quit. He is tired of being the Adversary, worn out from orchestrating the cries of the damned, and tired of overseeing all the many demons and other denizens of hell. So he has quit, thrown the dead out of hell, and is now locking the gate behind him as he leaves.
I'll ignore the unusual soteriology, and focus instead on an interesting point that Gaiman is making through his little horror story: There is no situation so bad that we can't leave it, and no hell so horrible but we are there by our own choice.
I've been fighting hard with this job for more than two years. The pay is miserable, the hours are unbearable, and I am overtaxed even as my skills are underused. At the end of the day, I have little to show for what I have done, while a number of things I would love to be doing -- things that I believe are a fundamental part of God's creation in me -- are being neglected.
It's time to quit.
I don't have another job to go to right now, which is a little unnerving, but I have to consider some other factors as well. I think things are in my favor.
Do we have the finances to last for a while without regular employment? We have about three months' worth of liquid assets if I were to quit now and stop drawing a paycheck. Not a lot, and I'm concerned about insurance, but there is some sort of cushion. Plus, my wife would be able to work more hours and draw a bigger paycheck at her part-time job, and I would be able to pursue other avenues of income, including my own PR business, which has a growing clientele. Additionally, added time at home theoretically translates to more time to look for work and find new clients, as well as pursuing some creative options I need to look into.
Is where I am at a good place to be? I think that's obvious. It's not. This job sucks at my time; it keeps me from my children and wife; it drains me emotionally, spiritually, physically and mentally, and keeps me at a desk so that I could stand to lose 35 or 40 pounds.
I miss two out of every seven days of my children's lives, and pour that time into a job that is increasingly difficult to do, doesn't match my lifestyle and is leading me to produce writing and editing that I'm not proud of. The hours are also insane -- somewhere between 50 and 60 a week, and it's about to increase, because my intern has gone, leaving me to write all the stories myself. I also can't trust my supervisors to care enough to do anything.
Will leaving give me opportunity to grow? I think so. I've got a few nice-paying clients, as I already said, including two I picked up just this week. That's something that will grow. Plus I have leads for part-time work, and have ideas for other challenging, interesting and productive ways to earn money that require time I don't have right now, ranging from a comic book idea I've discussed with Indigo, to ghost writing, free-lance copy editing and even writing a newspaper column from the point of view of the Religious Left.
What am I teaching my children? That they're more important to me than a job, or that I'd rather spend all my time in a dead-end position with a lousy employer than being with them? That it's important to chase your dreams and be what God has called you to be, or that you should settle for something less than what you are capable of?
What it boils down to for me is where God wants me. I think he wants me to leave, as evidenced by the complete misery I'm in by being here. And if that's what he wants, I'm prepared to take a step of faith and leave WCN behind.
The catch is that it can't be a step I take alone, because I'm not alone. I'm part of a family, and this decision has to be made with my wife's full consent. More than that, I'm part of a community, and any decision I make is going to have ramifications for my community of believers, whether it's hearing me whine and cry about how hard life is, or people stepping in and investing money in helping this to happen.
The last two years have been my worst, careerwise. I've gleaned some good out of it by reaching the point that I have a better idea what I'm capable of and what I require, but I think I'm at the end of the road with this place.
Dream arrives at the gates of hell, expecting opposition, and finds instead silence. To everyone's dismay, Lucifer Morningstar has decided to quit. He is tired of being the Adversary, worn out from orchestrating the cries of the damned, and tired of overseeing all the many demons and other denizens of hell. So he has quit, thrown the dead out of hell, and is now locking the gate behind him as he leaves.
I'll ignore the unusual soteriology, and focus instead on an interesting point that Gaiman is making through his little horror story: There is no situation so bad that we can't leave it, and no hell so horrible but we are there by our own choice.
It's time to quit.
I don't have another job to go to right now, which is a little unnerving, but I have to consider some other factors as well. I think things are in my favor.
Do we have the finances to last for a while without regular employment? We have about three months' worth of liquid assets if I were to quit now and stop drawing a paycheck. Not a lot, and I'm concerned about insurance, but there is some sort of cushion. Plus, my wife would be able to work more hours and draw a bigger paycheck at her part-time job, and I would be able to pursue other avenues of income, including my own PR business, which has a growing clientele. Additionally, added time at home theoretically translates to more time to look for work and find new clients, as well as pursuing some creative options I need to look into.
Is where I am at a good place to be? I think that's obvious. It's not. This job sucks at my time; it keeps me from my children and wife; it drains me emotionally, spiritually, physically and mentally, and keeps me at a desk so that I could stand to lose 35 or 40 pounds.
I miss two out of every seven days of my children's lives, and pour that time into a job that is increasingly difficult to do, doesn't match my lifestyle and is leading me to produce writing and editing that I'm not proud of. The hours are also insane -- somewhere between 50 and 60 a week, and it's about to increase, because my intern has gone, leaving me to write all the stories myself. I also can't trust my supervisors to care enough to do anything.
Will leaving give me opportunity to grow? I think so. I've got a few nice-paying clients, as I already said, including two I picked up just this week. That's something that will grow. Plus I have leads for part-time work, and have ideas for other challenging, interesting and productive ways to earn money that require time I don't have right now, ranging from a comic book idea I've discussed with Indigo, to ghost writing, free-lance copy editing and even writing a newspaper column from the point of view of the Religious Left.
What am I teaching my children? That they're more important to me than a job, or that I'd rather spend all my time in a dead-end position with a lousy employer than being with them? That it's important to chase your dreams and be what God has called you to be, or that you should settle for something less than what you are capable of?
What it boils down to for me is where God wants me. I think he wants me to leave, as evidenced by the complete misery I'm in by being here. And if that's what he wants, I'm prepared to take a step of faith and leave WCN behind.
The catch is that it can't be a step I take alone, because I'm not alone. I'm part of a family, and this decision has to be made with my wife's full consent. More than that, I'm part of a community, and any decision I make is going to have ramifications for my community of believers, whether it's hearing me whine and cry about how hard life is, or people stepping in and investing money in helping this to happen.
The last two years have been my worst, careerwise. I've gleaned some good out of it by reaching the point that I have a better idea what I'm capable of and what I require, but I think I'm at the end of the road with this place.
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
man, this job sucks
It just gets weirder and weirder here...
Where to start? About a month ago, a co-worker of mine named Vince was fired. Vince technically was mid-management. He was the arts and entertainment editor, but also had a lot of training responsibilities and did a lot of pinch hitting when needed. Why he was fired is irrelevant, but it caught no one by surprise, including him.
Several months ago, he had told our editor in chief, Tom, that when it came time for him to leave, one way or the other, he recommended that his post go either to me or to another editor.
Well, even though Tom knew that we both were interested in the job, he decided to hire a sports writer with no editing or A&E experience and made him the new A&E editor. That's pretty much how they work here; when someone is fired, they have the replacement hired two weeks before the firee discovers he is through. There is no in-house advertising of the position or anything.
Okay, that's annoying, but I can live with it. I think it's a piss-poor way to run a business, but it's not my business, and I'm tired of juggling editing and writing responsibilities anyway.
Last Thursday I came in to work and discovered that David Jay, the editor of our flagship paper, has been moved up to associate editor. (Vince's old title.) Jay has no writing responsibilities in his new post, will be in charge of backreading all newspaper copy, and is going to be the guru of pagination, layout and various other things. On top of that, his replacement is a 22-year-old college graduate whose only work experience is in a daycare and whose only newspaper experience was on the college newspaper. And she's editing our flagship?
I could kill.
No one -- not one person, except possibly Jablonski, knew about this change in the lineup. No one was given a chance to apply for the associate editor position, no one was given the chance to decide not to apply for it, no one was even given a chance to find out what the position would entail and whether they would be interested in it. What's worse, to create it, they apparently laid off two copy editors.
I could scream.
Tom knows I'm burned out on my current responsibilities. We've talked about it before, when he broke his promise that I was going to be reassigned to head up another office. I've mentioned before that I'd be interested in taking over the flagship paper -- and unlike Katie, I actually have eight years of professional experience in this business.
And -- this is going to sound all wrong, but I'm mad enough I don't care -- I'm a better editor and a better writer than Jay. He hasn't got a clue how to make a good layout, how to write a decent editorial, or even how to write a decent story. The previous copy editor told me she dreaded reading his papers, because he did virtually nothing with the news copy, leaving it entirely to edit and the stories for factual, grammatical and stylistic errors. Tom himself told me last year that he considers me the finest editor he has in this place. So why am I getting ignored for a position where I could conceivably help a number of other editors improve their work and thereby improve the quality of our final product? Why is responsibility for the flagship being given to a complete newcomer when there's another editor who knows the towns in covers inside and out?
Part of me is screaming that they're probably violating some sort of labor law in not even advertising these positions to staff first. It's certainly not taking the high road or trying to build employee morale or company loyalty.
I'm disgusted. I've picked up a client for the PR business and am on the verge of getting a few others, I think. Even if that doesn't work out immediately, I've also got resumes going all over the place for some other jobs.
I can't wait to shake the dust off my feet when I leave this place.
Where to start? About a month ago, a co-worker of mine named Vince was fired. Vince technically was mid-management. He was the arts and entertainment editor, but also had a lot of training responsibilities and did a lot of pinch hitting when needed. Why he was fired is irrelevant, but it caught no one by surprise, including him.
Several months ago, he had told our editor in chief, Tom, that when it came time for him to leave, one way or the other, he recommended that his post go either to me or to another editor.
Well, even though Tom knew that we both were interested in the job, he decided to hire a sports writer with no editing or A&E experience and made him the new A&E editor. That's pretty much how they work here; when someone is fired, they have the replacement hired two weeks before the firee discovers he is through. There is no in-house advertising of the position or anything.
Okay, that's annoying, but I can live with it. I think it's a piss-poor way to run a business, but it's not my business, and I'm tired of juggling editing and writing responsibilities anyway.
Last Thursday I came in to work and discovered that David Jay, the editor of our flagship paper, has been moved up to associate editor. (Vince's old title.) Jay has no writing responsibilities in his new post, will be in charge of backreading all newspaper copy, and is going to be the guru of pagination, layout and various other things. On top of that, his replacement is a 22-year-old college graduate whose only work experience is in a daycare and whose only newspaper experience was on the college newspaper. And she's editing our flagship?
I could kill.
No one -- not one person, except possibly Jablonski, knew about this change in the lineup. No one was given a chance to apply for the associate editor position, no one was given the chance to decide not to apply for it, no one was even given a chance to find out what the position would entail and whether they would be interested in it. What's worse, to create it, they apparently laid off two copy editors.
I could scream.
Tom knows I'm burned out on my current responsibilities. We've talked about it before, when he broke his promise that I was going to be reassigned to head up another office. I've mentioned before that I'd be interested in taking over the flagship paper -- and unlike Katie, I actually have eight years of professional experience in this business.
And -- this is going to sound all wrong, but I'm mad enough I don't care -- I'm a better editor and a better writer than Jay. He hasn't got a clue how to make a good layout, how to write a decent editorial, or even how to write a decent story. The previous copy editor told me she dreaded reading his papers, because he did virtually nothing with the news copy, leaving it entirely to edit and the stories for factual, grammatical and stylistic errors. Tom himself told me last year that he considers me the finest editor he has in this place. So why am I getting ignored for a position where I could conceivably help a number of other editors improve their work and thereby improve the quality of our final product? Why is responsibility for the flagship being given to a complete newcomer when there's another editor who knows the towns in covers inside and out?
Part of me is screaming that they're probably violating some sort of labor law in not even advertising these positions to staff first. It's certainly not taking the high road or trying to build employee morale or company loyalty.
I'm disgusted. I've picked up a client for the PR business and am on the verge of getting a few others, I think. Even if that doesn't work out immediately, I've also got resumes going all over the place for some other jobs.
I can't wait to shake the dust off my feet when I leave this place.
Friday, June 11, 2004
your bias is showing
A couple weeks ago, the supervisor of Public Works in Quakertown died unexecptedly. To replace him, the mayor tapped his father. It's an appointed position that pays about $8,000 and no one really disputes that his father is qualified for the post.
But you know the media. We have to a big deal out of everything, and so we ran an editorial criticizing the impending appointment as inappropriate because a family appointment like that -- not even the mayor's in-law, but his father for crying out loud -- at the very least has the appearance of nepotism.
The mayor called me up today and reamed me out for about half an hour. It's okay; that's an occupational hazard.
In the latest development, I found out today that the buzz around town is that the Quakertown Democratic Party has bought me off. (The Eagle generally has been regarded as the Republican paper for years.)
I find the notion of being in the pocket of a political party to be a thoroughly amusing one, and will be insufferably pleased with myself for at least a week. As I told the Democratic chairwoman, as long as both parties hate me, I can feel good about myself.
(As a side note, I wish that I would get something while I'm in all these pockets, but I don't seem to be having much luck.)
The irony is that I'd say if anyone has grounds to accuse me of bias, it's the Democratic Party. The GOP usually gets more coverage in The Eagle because Quakertown is a Republican community, and the GOP holds all the elected positions in the township (and most of the school board). It's a given that whoever in power is going to get more favorable press, quantitywise, by virtue of being the party in power doing things.
I'm short on righteous indignation anyway. I find it more amusing than insulting to be accused of stuff that's so far outside my character. It's like when a parent in my second year of teaching accused me of giving his son bad grades because he's black, or when I was accused by someone in Hillsborough of being racist. All I can do is laugh because it's such an absurd notion.
And laughter usually does more to deflate critics than anger would, anyway.
But you know the media. We have to a big deal out of everything, and so we ran an editorial criticizing the impending appointment as inappropriate because a family appointment like that -- not even the mayor's in-law, but his father for crying out loud -- at the very least has the appearance of nepotism.
The mayor called me up today and reamed me out for about half an hour. It's okay; that's an occupational hazard.
In the latest development, I found out today that the buzz around town is that the Quakertown Democratic Party has bought me off. (The Eagle generally has been regarded as the Republican paper for years.)
I find the notion of being in the pocket of a political party to be a thoroughly amusing one, and will be insufferably pleased with myself for at least a week. As I told the Democratic chairwoman, as long as both parties hate me, I can feel good about myself.
(As a side note, I wish that I would get something while I'm in all these pockets, but I don't seem to be having much luck.)
The irony is that I'd say if anyone has grounds to accuse me of bias, it's the Democratic Party. The GOP usually gets more coverage in The Eagle because Quakertown is a Republican community, and the GOP holds all the elected positions in the township (and most of the school board). It's a given that whoever in power is going to get more favorable press, quantitywise, by virtue of being the party in power doing things.
I'm short on righteous indignation anyway. I find it more amusing than insulting to be accused of stuff that's so far outside my character. It's like when a parent in my second year of teaching accused me of giving his son bad grades because he's black, or when I was accused by someone in Hillsborough of being racist. All I can do is laugh because it's such an absurd notion.
And laughter usually does more to deflate critics than anger would, anyway.
too much public information
As you probably know, I work for a community newspaper. This differs from a larger metro daily or other major daily newspaper in that our focus is limited to one community. Quakertown is about five square miles, and anything that happens beyond those borders is of no interest to us unless it impacts directly on the township in some way.
As a result, the stuff that we report on matters to the community, and our readers can get quite passionate about the paper since it's "theirs." A good community paper shapes not only terms of the debate but the debate itself. Done right, the paper reflects the character of the community and defines the community. What we write about and don't write about is a big deal.
Last month, Tim Louis, one of the new members on the board of education, decided to go beyond his rhetoric about how he wants to make the school board have "open communications" and to turn the schools into "blue ribbon schools." He decided it would be a good idea to publish the salaries of the every school district employee in the agenda to the school board's June business meeting.
Now these salaries are public information, at least in Iowa. Under an executive order by former Gov. Brendan Byrne, incorporated into the state's 2002 Open Public Records Act, select personnel information of public employees must be released upon request -- including salaries, W-4s, contracts and in some cases (if not all) their resumes as well.
Personally, I think Louis is crazy for wanting to do this. The information is public -- but that doesn't mean the school board needs to rent a billboard to advertise it. Salaries are personal information, and even though teachers sign off on that privacy when they sign a contract with a public school, there still is an aura of confidentiality around this information that should be respected. The district should release it when asked to, but I don't feel they should be actively distributing it.
The part that really bites is one of the owners of the newspaper wants us to beat the district to the punch. Yes, that's right -- we're about to publish this information in the newspaper with our next edition. I've already received calls from four different people alarmed over rumors that I've requested the salary information and received it. (Both rumors are true.)
I don't see a need for us to print the information either. There's useful data I can glean from the salary information -- median salaries, how the district compares to neighboring districts and statewide -- but I don't see a need for us to print all 200-some salaries, which include the details for everyone from the superintendent down to the maintenance workers and secretaries.
But printing all of it? That's just crazy. We're going to be stirring the pot tremendously with this one. Students and parents alike are going to compare the salaries of good teachers and bad, they're going to compare what district employees make to what residents in the community make, and I don't doubt this is going to be a major point of contention with the teacher's union. Did I mention the district is in the middle of negotiations with the union?
The amusing part to this is that Louis is one of the people who called me, begging me not to print the salary information in the paper. What did he expect? This never would have occurred to the owner if Louis hadn't suggested it in the first place. He kicked the first stone down the hillside, and now he's aghast that there's going to be an avalanche. What's that Jesus said about counting the cost before you start building a tower?
So anyway, here I am entering all the information into an Excel spreadsheet so we can print it on Page Three of the paper next week, with an accompanying story to give it some context. I was talking with the superintendent about it when he gave me the list and I said, "They're going to kill me when this hits the paper." He sympathizes -- he knows I'm not the one driving this -- but he agrees with me. This has been done before, and he's never seen it work out pleasantly either.
The double irony to this is that today I wrote the first draft of an editorial explaining why it's so important that we publish these salaries in the newspaper. (The editorial will be reviewed and probably altered somewhat by the higher-ups on the editorial board.) Tomorrow, I'm writing a column saying what a stupid idea I think the whole thing is. The two will run side by side.
What happens in Quakertown isn't generally of interest outside its borders -- but the issue of Public Right to Know vs. Public Need to Know is something that should be of interest to anyone involved in the news business, including people whose only involvement is to read them.
Usually as journalists we equate the two, or even insist that the public right to know information can supercede classifications that ordinarily would place it outside the domain of "right to know." The most obvious example of that would be the Pentagon Papers published by the Washington Post under Katharine Graham.
My feeling is that sometimes the public need to know isn't there, and that we can do more harm than we do good in publishing the information. And unlike the salaries of teachers in the Quakertown School District, that is an issue of national relevance, at least in the news business.
As a result, the stuff that we report on matters to the community, and our readers can get quite passionate about the paper since it's "theirs." A good community paper shapes not only terms of the debate but the debate itself. Done right, the paper reflects the character of the community and defines the community. What we write about and don't write about is a big deal.
Last month, Tim Louis, one of the new members on the board of education, decided to go beyond his rhetoric about how he wants to make the school board have "open communications" and to turn the schools into "blue ribbon schools." He decided it would be a good idea to publish the salaries of the every school district employee in the agenda to the school board's June business meeting.
Now these salaries are public information, at least in Iowa. Under an executive order by former Gov. Brendan Byrne, incorporated into the state's 2002 Open Public Records Act, select personnel information of public employees must be released upon request -- including salaries, W-4s, contracts and in some cases (if not all) their resumes as well.
Personally, I think Louis is crazy for wanting to do this. The information is public -- but that doesn't mean the school board needs to rent a billboard to advertise it. Salaries are personal information, and even though teachers sign off on that privacy when they sign a contract with a public school, there still is an aura of confidentiality around this information that should be respected. The district should release it when asked to, but I don't feel they should be actively distributing it.
The part that really bites is one of the owners of the newspaper wants us to beat the district to the punch. Yes, that's right -- we're about to publish this information in the newspaper with our next edition. I've already received calls from four different people alarmed over rumors that I've requested the salary information and received it. (Both rumors are true.)
I don't see a need for us to print the information either. There's useful data I can glean from the salary information -- median salaries, how the district compares to neighboring districts and statewide -- but I don't see a need for us to print all 200-some salaries, which include the details for everyone from the superintendent down to the maintenance workers and secretaries.
But printing all of it? That's just crazy. We're going to be stirring the pot tremendously with this one. Students and parents alike are going to compare the salaries of good teachers and bad, they're going to compare what district employees make to what residents in the community make, and I don't doubt this is going to be a major point of contention with the teacher's union. Did I mention the district is in the middle of negotiations with the union?
The amusing part to this is that Louis is one of the people who called me, begging me not to print the salary information in the paper. What did he expect? This never would have occurred to the owner if Louis hadn't suggested it in the first place. He kicked the first stone down the hillside, and now he's aghast that there's going to be an avalanche. What's that Jesus said about counting the cost before you start building a tower?
So anyway, here I am entering all the information into an Excel spreadsheet so we can print it on Page Three of the paper next week, with an accompanying story to give it some context. I was talking with the superintendent about it when he gave me the list and I said, "They're going to kill me when this hits the paper." He sympathizes -- he knows I'm not the one driving this -- but he agrees with me. This has been done before, and he's never seen it work out pleasantly either.
The double irony to this is that today I wrote the first draft of an editorial explaining why it's so important that we publish these salaries in the newspaper. (The editorial will be reviewed and probably altered somewhat by the higher-ups on the editorial board.) Tomorrow, I'm writing a column saying what a stupid idea I think the whole thing is. The two will run side by side.
What happens in Quakertown isn't generally of interest outside its borders -- but the issue of Public Right to Know vs. Public Need to Know is something that should be of interest to anyone involved in the news business, including people whose only involvement is to read them.
Usually as journalists we equate the two, or even insist that the public right to know information can supercede classifications that ordinarily would place it outside the domain of "right to know." The most obvious example of that would be the Pentagon Papers published by the Washington Post under Katharine Graham.
My feeling is that sometimes the public need to know isn't there, and that we can do more harm than we do good in publishing the information. And unlike the salaries of teachers in the Quakertown School District, that is an issue of national relevance, at least in the news business.
Thursday, December 18, 2003
die now
I wrote a column about Toys for Tots for the paper this week, and apparently caught everyone off-guard.
The column doesn't so much take issue with the notion of giving toys to underprivileged children as it does with the notion that this is enough, that the spirit of Christmas doesn't call us to somthing greater than merely handing out toys. Everyone at the office has known for some time that I'm not only a Christian but a former missionary, but unless I'm mistaken, interest in what I believe has just experienced an upsurge. I hope that's true among the community when the papers hit the stands tomorrow evening and Thursday.
Jesus doesn't ask merely the difficult of us; he asks us to do the impossible. The Cross is not a matter of inconvenience; it's about death. Jesus doesn't say, "Follow me and I'll give you everything you want," or even, "Make a couple sacrifices and follow me." What he says is, "Follow me and die."
I don't want that. You don't want that. None of us wants that. But that's what he calls us to. It's something that flies in the face of every ounce of who we are as people, our urge to matter, to have meaning in our lives, even to survive.
In exchange for dying now -- and he means death, real death to our selves -- he promises us not self-fulfillment or happiness, but grief, suffering, pain, and an eternity filled with a wilder, more unbelievable love than we've ever known before.
Everyone who knows me or who has read my blog, knows how I've wrestled with the grittiness of the faith. Paul and Jesus alike tell us that God is merciful and compassionate, sending rain upon the just and unjust alike.
And if we look at life that way, we do see incomparable mercy: Even men like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have known the untrammeled joys of seeing their children born and watching them grow through infancy and into full-fledged childhood. Even miserly scrooges can be touched by the beauty of a sunset, and the worst employers have discovered loyal workers and true friends.
But if life is beautiful, it's also foul. Children are abducted, raped and murdered. Teens are tormented brutally for being too slow in gym class, for being too smart in math class, for enjoying reading in a TV world or for watching the wrong TV shows.
Men like Matthew Shepard are murdered for being gay, and teen parents who kill their newborn children are let off with probation while people who smoke marijuana pass years in a jail cell.
Power is on the side of the strong, the wicked sit in positions of authority, and the law is corrupt. It's been that way since the beginning. God appears to be either schizophrenic or indifferent, but he claims to be good.
The defining moment of history was the Cross, where Jesus took on our sins -- became our sins -- and died. At the Cross, we find expiation for our sin. At the Cross, what righteousness we have through faith comes alive and grows us into the likeness of Christ so that God sees us fully realized in his son as we never have been realized here.
At the Cross, the old man dies and the new man comes to life as everything is stripped painfully away, and at the Cross we find the full depths of God's wild and reckless love, and everything else -- including the senseless suffering of children -- finds its meaning.
What we're left with is a love that defies understanding; it's wild, it's reckless and it's destructive. It's a raging torrent that, if we let it, will sweep us away and never let us be the same again.
Every now and then, I hear strains of that music through the noise of life, and it makes me dance with reckless abandon.
Copyright © 2003 by David Learn. Used with permission.
The column doesn't so much take issue with the notion of giving toys to underprivileged children as it does with the notion that this is enough, that the spirit of Christmas doesn't call us to somthing greater than merely handing out toys. Everyone at the office has known for some time that I'm not only a Christian but a former missionary, but unless I'm mistaken, interest in what I believe has just experienced an upsurge. I hope that's true among the community when the papers hit the stands tomorrow evening and Thursday.
Jesus doesn't ask merely the difficult of us; he asks us to do the impossible. The Cross is not a matter of inconvenience; it's about death. Jesus doesn't say, "Follow me and I'll give you everything you want," or even, "Make a couple sacrifices and follow me." What he says is, "Follow me and die."
I don't want that. You don't want that. None of us wants that. But that's what he calls us to. It's something that flies in the face of every ounce of who we are as people, our urge to matter, to have meaning in our lives, even to survive.
In exchange for dying now -- and he means death, real death to our selves -- he promises us not self-fulfillment or happiness, but grief, suffering, pain, and an eternity filled with a wilder, more unbelievable love than we've ever known before.
Everyone who knows me or who has read my blog, knows how I've wrestled with the grittiness of the faith. Paul and Jesus alike tell us that God is merciful and compassionate, sending rain upon the just and unjust alike.
And if we look at life that way, we do see incomparable mercy: Even men like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have known the untrammeled joys of seeing their children born and watching them grow through infancy and into full-fledged childhood. Even miserly scrooges can be touched by the beauty of a sunset, and the worst employers have discovered loyal workers and true friends.
But if life is beautiful, it's also foul. Children are abducted, raped and murdered. Teens are tormented brutally for being too slow in gym class, for being too smart in math class, for enjoying reading in a TV world or for watching the wrong TV shows.
Men like Matthew Shepard are murdered for being gay, and teen parents who kill their newborn children are let off with probation while people who smoke marijuana pass years in a jail cell.
Power is on the side of the strong, the wicked sit in positions of authority, and the law is corrupt. It's been that way since the beginning. God appears to be either schizophrenic or indifferent, but he claims to be good.
The defining moment of history was the Cross, where Jesus took on our sins -- became our sins -- and died. At the Cross, we find expiation for our sin. At the Cross, what righteousness we have through faith comes alive and grows us into the likeness of Christ so that God sees us fully realized in his son as we never have been realized here.
At the Cross, the old man dies and the new man comes to life as everything is stripped painfully away, and at the Cross we find the full depths of God's wild and reckless love, and everything else -- including the senseless suffering of children -- finds its meaning.
What we're left with is a love that defies understanding; it's wild, it's reckless and it's destructive. It's a raging torrent that, if we let it, will sweep us away and never let us be the same again.
Every now and then, I hear strains of that music through the noise of life, and it makes me dance with reckless abandon.
Copyright © 2003 by David Learn. Used with permission.
Sunday, October 26, 2003
choosing masters
Check out this transcript of Bill Moyers' conversation last night with theologian Joe Hugh.
I think he's (mostly) dead-on, and his message in this case is a (mostly) prophetic one. The Bible is full of invective against those who make themselves wealthy at the expense of others, and I think here in America we've got a culture of runaway greed and materialism.
My own work place is a good example. I'll go with it because I'm more familiar with it than I am with others. I have to work between 40 and 50 hours a week to make $35,000 a year, before taxes. That's with a college education and eight years of experience in this field, plus two years' experience as a teacher, and a second language. I'm a managing editor, but to save money, I'm also required to do the work of a reporter and produce enough news copy to fill at least the front page. I take this money and use it to pay my mortgage, buy our groceries, and perform the other necessities of life. We live fairly simply, we don't carry credit card debt over from one month to the next, and so on. It's still tight, and we really don't have any money to put away for retirement or even for much of savings. I have two children, and they're growing.
The sad thing is, I'm actually one of the better-paid employees. Most managing editors -- that's my title -- at Worrall Newspapers make about $26,000 before taxes. Reporters make $20,000. This is more or less what those positions paid 10 years ago. A co-worker of mine who has more job responsibilities, a higher rank and more experience with the company makes only $28,000. He's 40 years old, has two kids who are older than mine, and has been losing weight because he can't afford to feed both himself and his kids.
The production department is in the process of being phased out because we've finally switched to computerized layout instead of paste-up, and pagination duties are being given to the editors, who will not receive any extra pay for this. Additionally, two of the branch offices were consolidated recently, as another cost-savings measure.
There are no raises in this company, not even cost-of-living adjustments, and even though the company is doing better this year than last, they recently eliminated two positions to reduce expenses. I recently was denied a promotion I had been told I likely would be getting because I had the gall to say that I would like more money for more responsibilities. The guy they gave it to will make only $28,000 (as compared to the $35,000 I make), and he will be replaced with someone else they can pay $26,000.
In the meantime, the owners are amazingly well off. They drive expensive cars, take off for trips to posh vacation spots and, while they might not be multimillionaires, don't seem to be hurting nearly as much as their employees.
Do I think they'll have to answer for this to God? Yeah, I do. I also pray that they'll get a little less penny-pinching and start showing more compassion to the people who are making them their money, and if the opportunity arises, I'm probably going to say something about why morale is so low and everyone is itching to leave.
The scene in the corporate world is even worse. Corporate executives get paid millions, receive millions more in stock options, and as recent history has shown, seem to feel little guilt over plundering the business, even if it destroys the company. Shareholders often are concerned more with stock dividends and earnings reports than they are with the quality or affordability of the product, which is one of the reasons health care has become so expensive.
Increasingly, it's virtually impossible to graduate from college without crippling college loans, and even as those loans are increasing, the amount of high-paying jobs in the U.S. is declining as more and more technical jobs move overseas to cut costs. That's good for those other countries, but it's a bad combination here.
Jesus said that we can't serve both God and Mammon. If you look around at America today, it's pretty obvious which of the two we as a culture have chosen to serve.
We don't hear this much in church, which is alarming, because it doesn't seem like James is mincing his words in a letter to Christians: "Now listen, you rich people. weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you."
Where I disagree with Joe Hough (surprise, surprise) is that I don't think the answer to our solution is a political one. (I do have to admit that it drives me crazy to hear Christians defending tax cuts that favor the wealthy and powerful, though.) In the final analysis, what we need in America is a change of heart, not of administrations. That change needs to begin in the church, and it needs to begin in me.
Practically speaking, it means:
* Never mind making sandwiches for the homeless. Church groups need to go out to the soup kitchens, meet the homeless and become personally involved with them. Let their needs become our needs, and meet them.
* Christians in business need to run those businesses not on a profit-driven basis, but on a basis that serves Christ and that leads them to a deeper relationship and understanding of his character. A developer can still make a good amount of money but sell properties at a much lower profit, making housing more affordable. Other business owners can find ways to reduce not costs but profits, and still live comfortably. As Marley told Scrooge, mankind, not moneymaking, is meant to be our business. When we do that, we're keeping what Christ called the two greatest commandments.
* Give more. I don't believe Christ calls us to a 10 percent tithe. What he calls us to is to give generously. That enables us to help those who are in need, and it drives us to greater dependence on God to meet our own needs.
* Get engaged with people around you. I mentioned a co-worker who outranks me but makes less than I do. Yesterday, on the way home from work, I stopped by his house and gave him several bags of groceries with the admonition that he needs to feed himself as well as kids, or he'll do them a disservice. I don't say this to boast; I say this because it's the only way I've been able to help him with this problem, and it's the only way we'll really start to change the direction of our country, our church or ourselves. The Kingdom of God is about people, and it grows like a mustard seed until it becoems a tree that provides shelter for birds, animals and people alike.
* Churches need to start doing more. Many churches are retreats for the righteous. There are Sunday morning and Sunday evening services, Wednesday night Bible studies, and maybe even Christian schools. Great stuff for the Christian community. Lousy service for the world around. We're not meant to be a retreat for the saved; we're supposed to be a haven for the lost. The Trinity Foundation in Dallas, Texas, some time ago instituted the Dallas Project. Their goal is to get churches and synagogues to take the homeless problem seriously, by having members of the church "adopt" the homeless and help them to get back on their feet. That won't help those with mental illness, but many homeless people are homeless for reasons that have nothing to do with mental illness, especially these days. I'd argue the same approach to crisis pregnancies will do more to end abortion than all the lobbying and screeching we can muster, ever will accomplish.
Not that I'm opinionated or something. It's just that the more I read the gospels, the more I realize that the disenfranchised of society are the people on God's heart the most.
"Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
You know what pisses me off? I can't find any churches that actually believe this anymore.
I think he's (mostly) dead-on, and his message in this case is a (mostly) prophetic one. The Bible is full of invective against those who make themselves wealthy at the expense of others, and I think here in America we've got a culture of runaway greed and materialism.
My own work place is a good example. I'll go with it because I'm more familiar with it than I am with others. I have to work between 40 and 50 hours a week to make $35,000 a year, before taxes. That's with a college education and eight years of experience in this field, plus two years' experience as a teacher, and a second language. I'm a managing editor, but to save money, I'm also required to do the work of a reporter and produce enough news copy to fill at least the front page. I take this money and use it to pay my mortgage, buy our groceries, and perform the other necessities of life. We live fairly simply, we don't carry credit card debt over from one month to the next, and so on. It's still tight, and we really don't have any money to put away for retirement or even for much of savings. I have two children, and they're growing.
The sad thing is, I'm actually one of the better-paid employees. Most managing editors -- that's my title -- at Worrall Newspapers make about $26,000 before taxes. Reporters make $20,000. This is more or less what those positions paid 10 years ago. A co-worker of mine who has more job responsibilities, a higher rank and more experience with the company makes only $28,000. He's 40 years old, has two kids who are older than mine, and has been losing weight because he can't afford to feed both himself and his kids.
The production department is in the process of being phased out because we've finally switched to computerized layout instead of paste-up, and pagination duties are being given to the editors, who will not receive any extra pay for this. Additionally, two of the branch offices were consolidated recently, as another cost-savings measure.
There are no raises in this company, not even cost-of-living adjustments, and even though the company is doing better this year than last, they recently eliminated two positions to reduce expenses. I recently was denied a promotion I had been told I likely would be getting because I had the gall to say that I would like more money for more responsibilities. The guy they gave it to will make only $28,000 (as compared to the $35,000 I make), and he will be replaced with someone else they can pay $26,000.
In the meantime, the owners are amazingly well off. They drive expensive cars, take off for trips to posh vacation spots and, while they might not be multimillionaires, don't seem to be hurting nearly as much as their employees.
Do I think they'll have to answer for this to God? Yeah, I do. I also pray that they'll get a little less penny-pinching and start showing more compassion to the people who are making them their money, and if the opportunity arises, I'm probably going to say something about why morale is so low and everyone is itching to leave.
The scene in the corporate world is even worse. Corporate executives get paid millions, receive millions more in stock options, and as recent history has shown, seem to feel little guilt over plundering the business, even if it destroys the company. Shareholders often are concerned more with stock dividends and earnings reports than they are with the quality or affordability of the product, which is one of the reasons health care has become so expensive.
Increasingly, it's virtually impossible to graduate from college without crippling college loans, and even as those loans are increasing, the amount of high-paying jobs in the U.S. is declining as more and more technical jobs move overseas to cut costs. That's good for those other countries, but it's a bad combination here.
Jesus said that we can't serve both God and Mammon. If you look around at America today, it's pretty obvious which of the two we as a culture have chosen to serve.
We don't hear this much in church, which is alarming, because it doesn't seem like James is mincing his words in a letter to Christians: "Now listen, you rich people. weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you."
Where I disagree with Joe Hough (surprise, surprise) is that I don't think the answer to our solution is a political one. (I do have to admit that it drives me crazy to hear Christians defending tax cuts that favor the wealthy and powerful, though.) In the final analysis, what we need in America is a change of heart, not of administrations. That change needs to begin in the church, and it needs to begin in me.
Practically speaking, it means:
* Never mind making sandwiches for the homeless. Church groups need to go out to the soup kitchens, meet the homeless and become personally involved with them. Let their needs become our needs, and meet them.
* Christians in business need to run those businesses not on a profit-driven basis, but on a basis that serves Christ and that leads them to a deeper relationship and understanding of his character. A developer can still make a good amount of money but sell properties at a much lower profit, making housing more affordable. Other business owners can find ways to reduce not costs but profits, and still live comfortably. As Marley told Scrooge, mankind, not moneymaking, is meant to be our business. When we do that, we're keeping what Christ called the two greatest commandments.
* Give more. I don't believe Christ calls us to a 10 percent tithe. What he calls us to is to give generously. That enables us to help those who are in need, and it drives us to greater dependence on God to meet our own needs.
* Get engaged with people around you. I mentioned a co-worker who outranks me but makes less than I do. Yesterday, on the way home from work, I stopped by his house and gave him several bags of groceries with the admonition that he needs to feed himself as well as kids, or he'll do them a disservice. I don't say this to boast; I say this because it's the only way I've been able to help him with this problem, and it's the only way we'll really start to change the direction of our country, our church or ourselves. The Kingdom of God is about people, and it grows like a mustard seed until it becoems a tree that provides shelter for birds, animals and people alike.
* Churches need to start doing more. Many churches are retreats for the righteous. There are Sunday morning and Sunday evening services, Wednesday night Bible studies, and maybe even Christian schools. Great stuff for the Christian community. Lousy service for the world around. We're not meant to be a retreat for the saved; we're supposed to be a haven for the lost. The Trinity Foundation in Dallas, Texas, some time ago instituted the Dallas Project. Their goal is to get churches and synagogues to take the homeless problem seriously, by having members of the church "adopt" the homeless and help them to get back on their feet. That won't help those with mental illness, but many homeless people are homeless for reasons that have nothing to do with mental illness, especially these days. I'd argue the same approach to crisis pregnancies will do more to end abortion than all the lobbying and screeching we can muster, ever will accomplish.
Not that I'm opinionated or something. It's just that the more I read the gospels, the more I realize that the disenfranchised of society are the people on God's heart the most.
"Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
You know what pisses me off? I can't find any churches that actually believe this anymore.
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
going union
I'm starting to think I really should be considered more liberal than I usually am. Tonight I found myself in the middle of a discussion with three other editors about why — not if, but why — we should form a union in the news room. I've been given the duty of contacting the state Department of Labor to see what our legal options are, as well as some of the ramifications of each approach.
Then we have to go about building consensus. We were trying to determine whom we could approach down the road to get the necessary votes to unionize, and whom would be dangerous to approach. Naturally if the owners or management finds out, there's a good chance we'll either be given our walking papers or strongly encouraged to leave...
*sigh*
Silly me and that whole James 5:1-6 thing...
Then we have to go about building consensus. We were trying to determine whom we could approach down the road to get the necessary votes to unionize, and whom would be dangerous to approach. Naturally if the owners or management finds out, there's a good chance we'll either be given our walking papers or strongly encouraged to leave...
*sigh*
Silly me and that whole James 5:1-6 thing...
Friday, May 23, 2003
job update
Well, what's next appears to be a promotion to the manager of a different office, a little further up the Parkway from where I work, overseeing a staff of three editors and their reporters, a copy editor and a receptionist/typist type.
I had remarked to Tim about a month ago that I'm feeling burnt out where I am right now. The work is essentially what I've been doing for a few years, with the result that I've been spinning my wheels and beginning to stagnate. Even before that conversation, I had started working with some of my co-workers from a mentor position, going over papers, layouts, headlines and stories with them with an eye toward what could have been done to make the paper better.
It appears that Tim has decided I'd be a good choice to engage in some of that on a formal basis in one of our other offices. What that would mean in terms of pay I don't know. Obviously, and as I told him, I'd like to get more money. I'm making about $35K now; I had been making $40K at The Times, and that was the first time Natasha and I were able to live moderately comfortably on my salary. It's been tight on what I'm making at WCN, and to be honest, we wouldn't be making it at all without the money Natasha pulls in from some free-lance work she does for Rutgers University. Now that we have Rachel as well as Evangeline, we really could use a bit more. I didn't name the figure, but $45K would be nice. (I actually said $60K would be nice, which it would, but I really don't think that's even in the realm of possibility.)
From what Tim told me, I'm already one of the three highest-paid managing editors, which is about what I had figured, so he's not sure how much more they could give me as a regional or associate editor, whatever my title would be.
Mixed feelings. It's a step up and it's a chance to develop new skills, and although I'm not wild about staying with a company as notoriously cheap as this one, I'm also not wild about changing jobs AGAIN. I've been with this one only a year, and before that it was unemployment for eight months, The Times for eight months, The Packet for three years, Forbes Newspapers for 18 months, various piddly jobs like gas station attendant and pizza guy over a 12-month period, teacher in Bethlehem, Pa., for a year, teacher in Port-au-Prince for a year, missionary for a year, and college student.
In other words, my work history has been marked by a lot of jumping, and I wouldn't mind a little stability and a natural progression through the ranks for a while before I leave the workforce for stay-at-home dadhood or to a job I really enjoy.
Another nice thing is that the job theoretically could be 9-to-5, which is what I'd like right now anyway, with the kids the age they are. The niggling suspicion there is that while Tim might not be consciously lying to me, he also said this current, 50-hour-a-week job only takes 40 hours, back when he hired me. We editors call that the big lie.
On top of that, the office where I would be working has two bits of its reputation that I don't like: 1) It's where they send people when they want them to quit; and 2) It has its own Reporter from Hell, and I've already had one of those in this job. Her replacement has been great -- the epitome of professional behavior, and I've tremendously enjoyed working with him. I'm really not eager to trade him in for someone who's been doing the job for so long he knows everything already and won't be taught. I've also seen a couple of the editors in action whom I would be dealing with, and I'm not terribly impressed.
I didn't tell Tim yea or nay, and he didn't push me for an answer either, which suggests it's not his plan to send me there to get rid of me. I told him I am interested, but would like to know more about what I would be doing (responsibilities and authorities), and how much I'd be making.
The implication I picked up was that the job is mine if I want it, and that he wants to have me moved in there by the end of next month. So we'll see.
I had remarked to Tim about a month ago that I'm feeling burnt out where I am right now. The work is essentially what I've been doing for a few years, with the result that I've been spinning my wheels and beginning to stagnate. Even before that conversation, I had started working with some of my co-workers from a mentor position, going over papers, layouts, headlines and stories with them with an eye toward what could have been done to make the paper better.
It appears that Tim has decided I'd be a good choice to engage in some of that on a formal basis in one of our other offices. What that would mean in terms of pay I don't know. Obviously, and as I told him, I'd like to get more money. I'm making about $35K now; I had been making $40K at The Times, and that was the first time Natasha and I were able to live moderately comfortably on my salary. It's been tight on what I'm making at WCN, and to be honest, we wouldn't be making it at all without the money Natasha pulls in from some free-lance work she does for Rutgers University. Now that we have Rachel as well as Evangeline, we really could use a bit more. I didn't name the figure, but $45K would be nice. (I actually said $60K would be nice, which it would, but I really don't think that's even in the realm of possibility.)
From what Tim told me, I'm already one of the three highest-paid managing editors, which is about what I had figured, so he's not sure how much more they could give me as a regional or associate editor, whatever my title would be.
Mixed feelings. It's a step up and it's a chance to develop new skills, and although I'm not wild about staying with a company as notoriously cheap as this one, I'm also not wild about changing jobs AGAIN. I've been with this one only a year, and before that it was unemployment for eight months, The Times for eight months, The Packet for three years, Forbes Newspapers for 18 months, various piddly jobs like gas station attendant and pizza guy over a 12-month period, teacher in Bethlehem, Pa., for a year, teacher in Port-au-Prince for a year, missionary for a year, and college student.
In other words, my work history has been marked by a lot of jumping, and I wouldn't mind a little stability and a natural progression through the ranks for a while before I leave the workforce for stay-at-home dadhood or to a job I really enjoy.
Another nice thing is that the job theoretically could be 9-to-5, which is what I'd like right now anyway, with the kids the age they are. The niggling suspicion there is that while Tim might not be consciously lying to me, he also said this current, 50-hour-a-week job only takes 40 hours, back when he hired me. We editors call that the big lie.
On top of that, the office where I would be working has two bits of its reputation that I don't like: 1) It's where they send people when they want them to quit; and 2) It has its own Reporter from Hell, and I've already had one of those in this job. Her replacement has been great -- the epitome of professional behavior, and I've tremendously enjoyed working with him. I'm really not eager to trade him in for someone who's been doing the job for so long he knows everything already and won't be taught. I've also seen a couple of the editors in action whom I would be dealing with, and I'm not terribly impressed.
I didn't tell Tim yea or nay, and he didn't push me for an answer either, which suggests it's not his plan to send me there to get rid of me. I told him I am interested, but would like to know more about what I would be doing (responsibilities and authorities), and how much I'd be making.
The implication I picked up was that the job is mine if I want it, and that he wants to have me moved in there by the end of next month. So we'll see.
Friday, January 31, 2003
editorial contest
I'm not sure why I feel compelled to share this, but today I initiated a contest among several editors and writers at WCN Newspapers.
As we write our editorials and columns this week, we are making an effort to use the names of as many comic strips as we can without forcing it. A sample might read: "For better or for worse, the county has chosen to initiate this program. The $3 million of seed money might seem like peanuts compared to the overall budget, and to be fair, it surely will jump start the recovery process for this sector."
And so on. The winner is the one who gets the most comic strip names into print next week, meaning they'll have to pass through the review process of our higher-ups, who know nothing about the contest.
Somehow I doubt we'll see references to strips like "Get Fuzzy" or "Apartment 3-G."Saturday, July 13, 2002
back to work
Once again I am underemployed in the newspaper business where I am trying to provide for a family of four (soon to be five) on an annual income of $35,000 (before taxes).
I recently accepted a job at WCN Newspapers in Union, as the managing editor of the Crane's Ford Eagle and the Quakertown Eagle. No, I have no idea why they are called the "Eagle." Up until June, The Princeton Packet was the oddest name I'd ever heard for a newspaper.
I also had applied for a position at Focus on the Family for a web-based position. Unfortunately, they decided they could save money and get better results by giving the job to a trained lemur from Pasadena, Calif. No, seriously, I wasn't told why I was turned down (aside from the standard say-nothing explanation), but I suspect it's because I'm unable/unwilling to relocate to Colorado until the situation with my foster son has been resolved.
A couple people I know think I made a mistake in taking that position, but it doesn't seem fair to a kid who was abused for two years to throw him to the wolves just to give my career a massive boost in terms of exposure and higher-profile writing.
Besides, the fact that I was considered at all is nice in itself, and if I can get my fat butt in gear I think I should be able to swing some free-lance writing gigs at Focus.
I recently accepted a job at WCN Newspapers in Union, as the managing editor of the Crane's Ford Eagle and the Quakertown Eagle. No, I have no idea why they are called the "Eagle." Up until June, The Princeton Packet was the oddest name I'd ever heard for a newspaper.
I also had applied for a position at Focus on the Family for a web-based position. Unfortunately, they decided they could save money and get better results by giving the job to a trained lemur from Pasadena, Calif. No, seriously, I wasn't told why I was turned down (aside from the standard say-nothing explanation), but I suspect it's because I'm unable/unwilling to relocate to Colorado until the situation with my foster son has been resolved.
A couple people I know think I made a mistake in taking that position, but it doesn't seem fair to a kid who was abused for two years to throw him to the wolves just to give my career a massive boost in terms of exposure and higher-profile writing.
Besides, the fact that I was considered at all is nice in itself, and if I can get my fat butt in gear I think I should be able to swing some free-lance writing gigs at Focus.
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