Inexplicable Gilmore Girls Review: Okay, Rory IS awful

Warning: Spoilers follow for episodes 21 and 22 for season five of Gilmore Girls, and the first four episodes of season six.

In the last entry I wrote on Gilmore Girls, I wondered aloud whether Rory might actually be a horrible human being. Well, since then, she got arrested for stealing a yacht, her loser boyfriend didn’t suffer many consequences for that action, she dropped out of Yale, and she fought with Lorelai and moved into her grandparents’ pool house.

Outside of that though, things are fine!

So, yeah. I think the show is attempting to portray Rory as going through a bit of a quarter-life crisis. I’m not crazy about it though, because it mostly does this by making her seem meek. The primary influence in Rory’s life to this point – Lorelai – is many things, but meek is not one of them. It therefore stretches credibility to me that Rory just kind of gets swept up by Logan, and then, has a crisis of faith when Logan’s dad tells her she’s not cut out to be a reporter.

The story arc has culminated with Rory and Lorelai being on the outs for the first time in a major way in the series’ run. Sure, they sparred over Rory liking Jess, and staying out overnight with Dean, but there hadn’t been a major blow-up like this one before.

Lorelai also (rightly, in my mind) bristles at Richard and Emily basically using Rory as a Lorelai Make-Up. Meaning, Rory is now their project for social and status gain, whether it’s pairing her up with Logan Huntzberger, getting her involved in the DAR or having her involved in their social activities now. One of the best season five scenes to me happened in the first third of the season, when Lorelai cringes as she watches how easily Rory fits into the high class life she willingly left behind.

Anyway! Some other odds and ends:

- The journalism depictions in Gilmore Girls are laughingly bad, but I wasn’t really expecting much from the show either. Logan’s dad is a newspaper executive in 2004, and he’s incredibly confident, which just makes him seem like many of the buffoonish executives around at that time.

I was a college sophomore and junior in 2004, and although the show was probably filmed in 2003, even then there was a distinctive, “Hey, we might be in trouble!” feel in the newspaper industry. There was also plenty of cost-cutting and layoffs going on before, during and after the run of Gilmore Girls, yet the paper Rory interns at has a comically large newsroom and hustle-and-bustle going on.

By the way, her internship specifically seems horribly miscast. Hollywood and entertainment industry interns might follow around the boss and fetch coffee. Journalism interns start in two gigs – Weekend reporter, covering bake sales and other low stakes shit, or calendar listings and notes sections. Meaning, compiling the large lists of group meetings and events you see in a daily newspaper. Even if Rory is just an intern, and Huntzberger Senior doesn’t think she’s going to be a great reporter, she’s still capable of producing content and copy-editing some listings.

- Logan’s awfulness has been reduced slightly in season six, as he’s a tiny bit more supportive of Rory and less Unavailable Douchebag Boyfriend, a la Jess. However, he’s still “supportive” in an extravagant way, like throwing her a Felon Party and whisking her away to New York. I suppose that if you have money, you should use it, but he mostly uses it to escape any sort of responsibility. Good times!

- Rory and Logan being awful overshadow some of the sweeter plot lines that start season six, like Luke and Lorelai gradually upgrading their house and plotting their wedding, Sookie and Jackson having the only stable relationship on the show, and the road trip with Lane’s band. And hey, Lane’s boyfriend is Zach! I finally remembered because he seems like a dumb, loveable oaf, in comparison to all of the horrible boyfriends on the show.

- Finally, Paul fucking Anka! He’s the MAN, even though he’s a dog. He makes me wish I had a dog. And the real Paul Anka, he has one of the most awesome blow-up tapes ever. “The guys get shirts! Don’t make a fucking maniac out of me. The guys get shirts!”

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Steve At Work

Have you ever wondered, "Hey, what does Steve look like when he's working?" Well, thanks to the obtrusive nature of television news, you can now find out by clicking here. I'm in the background of both of the videos on that page, wearing the green polo shirt. For the fuller version of that story though, I recommend my paper's articles on the court case, which can be accessed here (today's hearing) and here (the background).

I'll admit that it is kind of odd to be in the background, working, while someone else is working, if that makes sense. It happens to me pretty frequently though, since I have the courthouse beat. Earlier this week, I believe I made it into some broadcasts because a crooked lawyer was sentenced to a year in jail and I was there working. I'm also in this YouTube video about historic flooding in Rhode Island, albeit briefly.

Here is the sad part - My brief appearances on television always elicit more of a response than most thins I actually write for the paper. Here is a rough hierarchy of what events cause me to get the most feedback:

Being in a background shot of a television story > reporting a major story in print > writing a column with a head shot > a normal news story

Anyway. I'll add that I've never been on television for a legitimate reason. I was interviewed once by The Providence Journal because a fraternity at URI stole a bunch of our student newspapers and burned them at their house. However, I think that story ended up on the bottom of A-1 or B-1, and it represents the peak of my Z-level local celebrity.

The picture of Dusty and Robbie is from this site here.

The Wire, The Baltimore Sun and Journalism

One of the main story arcs in the fifth and final season of The Wire is about the dysfunction present throughout the management and reporters of The Baltimore Sun, which is regarded as the chief paper of the city. With less revenue coming in, the upper-level management of the paper has laid off experienced reporters in favor of younger kids fresh out of journalism school, and the product has suffered as a result. Since my profession is reporting, I had a couple thoughts on the whole presentation of the paper. You can also read a past entry I did about my experience(s) with journalism here.

- The clueless upper level corporate management is something I've heard horror stories about, and it's completely accurate. On The Wire, they call all of the staff into the room to announce that because revenue projections weren't met, they would have to begin another round of buyouts.

At one of my first journalism stops, I actually saw this happen. It was one of the most painful things I had to sit through, especially since the meeting was held at a swanky yacht club. (Newspapers are wonderfully duplicitous like this.) The meddling nature of executive editor James Whiting (Sam Freed) I have definitely seen firsthand, and I cringed whenever he mentioned the "Dickensian" aspect of a story. I thought to myself, "What the fuck does that even mean?", a sentiment probably shared by the characters of the show. Managing editor Thomas Klebanow is portrayed as a sleazy mouthpiece of management as opposed to being concerned about putting out a good product, which also echoes for me.

There still is an emphasis on stories that elicit an emotion from a reader, as opposed to actually being about anything relevant. The best example is normally stories about animals. I've done plenty of these, and they always get a good reaction from readers, because hey, who doesn't like a story about a cute pet? However, almost any issue involving an animal is normally small fry as compared to what's going on with the budget or tax situation.

Also, with the now constant pressure of a 24-hour news cycle at some places, and as executive editors attempt to run newspapers like television stations, there is less opportunity to just breathe and stop (in the words of Q-Tip). A deep, investigative story should be the bread and butter for newspapers. Now, they're seldom done except around award time, just like the portrayal of the editors of The Baltimore Sun regarding the Pulitzer Prize.

- I've dealt with shifty reporters when I was the editor of The Good Five Cent Cigar, the student newspaper of the University of Rhode Island. As a result, I immediately had my suspicions about the BS reporter Scott Templeton (Thomas McCarthy) was spewing about the handicapped kid outside of the Baltimore Orioles game. In fact, shortly after I saw that scene, I sent an e-mail to my buddy Tom about it:


As his editor rightly notes, Templeton's stories are too good. Speaking as someone who talks to and quotes people for a living, almost no one is that well-spoken in an interview, unless they talk professionally for a living. While some light clean-up of a person's words is allowed at some shops (i.e. removing excessive "ums" and "uhs"), Templeton was obviously doing wholescale cribbing and plagiarism.

However, I do understand the reluctance of editor Augustus "Gus" Haynes in calling Templeton out on it. It's a serious allegation to make against a reporter, especially when he's the golden boy of the paper as in The Wire. I think people have a desire to want to believe a story - whether it be of a hotshot reporter or the homeless guy who's secretly a classical musician or millionaire - without really questioning it.

- The Baltimore Sun doesn't really come off that well in the show, but I think you could substitute any non-super local paper in its place and see similar problems. At least from the conferences and what not that I've attended, papers like The Providence Journal and The Boston Globe, and even The New York Times and The Washington Post, are all dealing with problems when it comes to market share and revenue.

David Simon, the creator of The Wire, mentions in interviews that the show is really about illustration how corruption taints organizations, whether it is the police force and drug dealers in seasons one through five, the shipping union in season two, politics in seasons three through five or reporting in season five. Or, as one of the characters so eloquently puts it on the show, "Shit rolls downhill."

Likewise, I think you can trace the decline of journalism to the corporate ownership of newspapers. At a certain point, newspapers became a commodity to be owned by a larger company, and expected to produce and expand like any other product. This always struck me as folly. If you're producing a Providence paper, then most editions simply aren't going to resonate with a reader in California.

It also didn't help that many reporters and editors simply refused to accommodate new technology intelligently. Giving away every story for free on the Internet was a stupid decision, however, using the web for photo slideshows and expanded coverage? That's an effective use of resources to me, especially if you're going to actually make the shitty sales people do something smart, like aggressively marketing those photos and making packages and what not that can be marketed.

- In a completely random note, the best pro wrestling blogger in the business writes for The Baltimore Sun. Check out Ring Posts by Kevin Eck here.

Screw young readers (not literally)

This will seem like an odd stance to take, since I help out a lot with a high school and college newspaper, but I always shrug my shoulders when I hear news reports about people under 25 and under 30 not being interested in the newspaper. Shockingly, kids this age are also not interested in owning minivans or eating caviar, yet both of those industries seem to be surviving. Only the newspaper industry seems to be frantically afraid of not appealing to this demographic.

The argument that this segment is important goes along the lines that if they're not reading now, they won't be reading in their 30s. This will create a downward spiral of readership that will result in newspapers toppling over the cliff.

As a result, this leads to a fracturing of the news product that just creates a garbled mess that nobody likes. I've always found that the worst features a newspaper does are when it tries to be "hip" and cover a subject it has absolutely no grasp, or worse, if it just responds to hype or terror stories about drugs. The most prominent example of this would the craze about reporting on "pharm parties" as if they were real.

Instead of trying to diversify the product, newspapers should stick to what they do best: Deep, investigative analysis of local issues, and providing content that can't be found in other medium.

As far as the kids go, don't worry so much about them. Here is a dirty little secret: If I wasn't involved in newspapers, I'm not sure how much I would have read them either. If you're under 30, you probably don't own property that is effected by a new property tax, or have a good enough job to care about the tax rate, or be in a stable enough financial situation to contribute to the library drive. You are also trying to jostle time away from studying, sports, or the eternal struggle of under 30 relationships.

Newspapers, just be patient. When young people start acquiring these things, they will naturally become more curious about the underlying systems that fuel them. Until that time, targeting stories at the demographic seems like much ado about nothing.

The picture is from this site here. See? I still know how to source! Journalism is obviously alive and well.

Silliness!

I still love the newspaper chain I used to work for, because they find some truly funny things out in the communities they cover, the kind of stuff you normally only get from immersing yourself into an area. Case in point: The sign to the left, which is from a story here.

News - Thursday, September 24, 2009

Straight off the meat hook and right on to your plate, it's the news!

- The big celebrity news of the week concerns Mackenzie Phillips, who apparently had a 10-year incestuous relationship with her dad, and a lifelong addiction to heroin. Although I didn't see her appearance on Today, the news story that MSNBC.com staff did about it was well-done, I thought.

It is odd to me that people are questioning whether it actually happened or not, though. Yes, she was on drugs, so I suppose you can question the validity of her memories, but she does come across as pretty lucid in her responses, at least in the news article. Also, from listening to Loveline and Dr. Drew, this sort of sexual abuse is somewhat common in horrible, drug-filled situations like these.

- Work on an AIDS vaccine is progressing forward, with clinical first trials showing some promise. Scientists don't seem to think it'll be a perfect solution, but it is great to see progress being made.

- And finally, in bizarro stripper news... A former stripper is claiming that a Catholic priest would preach on Sunday, and then make fun of God by banging her, and attending nudist and sex clubs obsessively, the other six days of the week. You will be absolutely, positively SHOCKED about where this happened. Wait for it... Wait for it... MIAMI FLORIDA.

Just say no to moving to Florida, unless it's for college. (Erin Andrews, call me!)

Thanks to this site for the image at the top.

News - Thursday, September 17, 2009

[Left] This image will be more important later on in the post, so just keep it in mind for now.

Here is some random, trivial news that you nonetheless can't do without:

- This article is from June 2008, but I just recently became aware of its existence. It is written for The Atlantic by a professor at a small liberal arts college and a community college. It is a pretty damning account of how a lot of people are being shoved toward school, even if they're clearly unqualified for it or if it would have little practical value for their career.

For more own experience in college and substitute teaching, I do think this is still the case. People who have no interest in learning and school go to college and community college because it is another year that you don't have to get a real job. Then, as the article spotlights, there are people interested in learning that just don't have the capacity or the underlying ability to do college-level work. While it would be nice for there to be more services to "bridge" this sort of gap, I don't really have a solution at all.

- Slate has a good interview, the first of two parts, with Bill Cosby. He mostly talks about The Cosby Show, which is always a good thing. Also in Slate, a reviewer pans the accuracy of Dan Brown's latest book. And Bill Simmons being sponsored by Miller Lite isn't a gag.

- In neato dinosaur news, scientists have found a smaller version of the T-Rex in fossils. You know, if Jurassic Park was real, I would love to have a pet dinosaur. I promise that I would take care of it and everything! It would awesome, especially one of the ones with a long neck, that I could ride down like a slide. I would also like the plush dinosaur featured above. (See, told you it would be important later.)

- And finally, in strippers news, Las Vegas Weekly notes that the pole is on the rise (get it?) culturally. According to The Cleveland Plain Dealer, a former transportation director is in trouble for shaking down witnesses, and also allegedly traded contracts for sex parties on Lake Erie. Lucy Lawless' new show has strippers cast as extras. And this company is advertising a book from an Ivy League-educated stripper who just recovered from breast cancer.

Scheduling and News - Sunday, September 13, 2009

An example of the Adult Swim schedule. Click here for full-size.

Here is a tentative schedule for the blog in the coming weeks, since I've always liked when Adult Swim posts their schedules on a bump:

- Sunday: Miscellaneous fun
- Monday: iTunes running diary
- Tuesday: A wrap column about how the weekend football picks went
- Wednesday: Miscellaneous fun
- Thursday: NFL picks on early weeks / miscellaneous fun
- Friday: NFL picks on normal weeks
- Saturday morning: Kristin's football picks on normal NFL weeks
- Saturday night: Storytime with Amanda Meyer

With this current schedule, there are three regular features (iTunes running diary, NFL picks and Storytime) and a smattering of other content every week. I will continue to sprinkle in my other semi-regular features, such as Inexplicable Movie Reviews and At The Commercials, instead of giving them their own specific day.

And speaking of a regular feature, let's do one I haven't done in a while - The news!

- Click here for a really good article from The National Post about how the Mexican government is having a big problem cracking down on the drug trade. It reminds me of some of the better work that you'd see in The Wall Street Journal; I think journalism needs more international reporting like this.

Along similar lines, in terms of the war on drugs, The Guardian also had a nice piece in an August issue about cocaine bars in South America, and Bolivia in particular. While I think the article is a bit soft on the abuse aspect and danger of the drug until the end, the enterprise nature of the report is still surprising and interesting throughout. And although the content is a lot different, the enterprise reporting going on in Afghanistan is just as impressive, according to American Journalism Review.

- In stripper news that is actually realistic and not super-sleazy or funny, a Vancouver paper did a really good piece on how strippers and prostitutes are still using Craigslist to setup jobs. The reporter sets up meetings with several of the escorts, and although he compensates some for their time, which is normally a journalistic no-no, the results seem to be worth the overlay. Informative and interesting read.

- In stripper news that is bizarre and surreal, although not what you'd think, a Connecticut man was arrested for dumping paint stripper all over his wife's car, which he then draped with her wedding dress and bouquet. The only thing surprising about this story is that it happened in New England, and not Germany or Florida.

- And in stripper news that is completely what you think, a guy is trying to use pictures of a stripper on a police car near a police deputy to blackmail the deputy from testifying against him in court. Whew; that's a mouthful.

Wrasslin' around

[Left] Still the best entrance ever: The countdown clock from Jericho's initial WWE run.

The other day in The Los Angeles Times, there was a decent article about the new, family-friendly direction the WWE was headed in. However, to a longtime wrestling fan like myself, reading it reminded me that “family-friendly” is a relative term indeed. The columnist also didn't come across as much of a wrestling fan, since the article focused almost solely on current stars and provided little background.

While the WWE has undoubtedly strayed from the tits, ass, violence and blood of the appropriately-named Attitude Era, there is still plenty to get offended by. They have just shifted the focus from things that got them the teen / mature TV ratings (blood, breasts) to simpler storylines and non-bloody beatdowns. Also, with the exception of re-hiring Chris Masters, there has been a shift away from the professional bodybuilder look, probably in reaction to the Chris Benoit incident.

DX, the original group of bad humor, just reformed, even though Shawn Michaels and HHH are both in their mid-40s. Although it was played up as farcical, HBK did Superkick a tween girl in the face less than a month ago. (Background: They were doing a skit where HHH had to talk HBK back into wrestling, but HBK was working as a cook – I mean, a chef – at essentially a cheap hotel restaurant... Yeah, I don't know why I watch wrestling either sometimes.) They also still do childish jokes and crotch chops.

The best argument that can be made for the new direction of the WWE is a shift to more old school storylines. For example, Randy Orton is the current WWE champion, and he has retained his title each time with chicanery, normally with a member of his gang breaking up a pinfall or interfering. Orton has also done vile things, like punting HHH's wife Stephanie McMahon in the skull.

Opposing Orton would be John Cena, who you might remember from some funny appearances on late night television shows and some god-awful movies (The Marine, 12 Rounds). He is as close to Hulk Hogan as you can get in the current wrestling industry, as he is built like a starting middle linebacker and always plays the “good guy” role, at least for the last five years. (He does get booed a lot by hardcore fans, and while I'm not the biggest fan of his squeaky-clean persona, I do think he's a good wrestler. He also seems to be a good guy away from the ring as well.)

There are other clear bad guy vs. good guy feuds throughout the Raw roster, although I will say that as a result it tends to be the less entertaining show for longtime fans. Smackdown, which airs Friday nights on MyNetworkTV, is by far the better show at this point. That show has an edgier feud between the straight-edge CM Punk and the notorious risk taker Jeff Hardy, which culminated in a vicious tables, ladders and chairs match Sunday night at SummerSlam.

While there is far less blood in WWE programming now, there are just as many metal chair attacks and leaps from 20-foot-high ladders, so I'd hesitate to say they're getting back to “family-friendly” programming. When I was watching wrestling as a kid, it was just tamer in general; the brightly-colored outfits of Bret “The Hitman” Hart and Hulk Hogan definitely lightened the tone.

Beeeeeeepppp......

Sorry for the interruption in posting, but because of a news emergency, I didn't get a chance to post tonight's entry. Please tune in for your regularly scheduled blog, tomorrow at 7 p.m. EST. The management apologizes for the inconvenience.

Welcome (back) to the machine

The other day I wrote a post about some of the inside workings of journalism, because I figured I wouldn't ever get another journalism job again. Uh, whoops!

I recently interviewed for, auditioned for (wrote a few pieces) and got a 30-hour per week writing job with The Westerly Sun, a local daily. I'm pretty psyched about it, because the extra money will enable me to move out of my parent's house eventually, and they have seemed pretty cool about me working other jobs (driving range, Blast, Gamezebo) in order to make ends meet, since they're only part-time. As a result, I think I'll still have time to update this blog and what not.

And also, since I got this journalism job once I thought I wouldn't get another one and wrote it... Then I really think there is no chance I'll date Jennifer Love Hewitt. That ship has definitely sailed as well, and there is no way that she'll dump Jamie Kennedy and call me out of the blue.

Holidays, obligations and Captain America

I've never been really gungho about holidays, even if it is seemingly something that is simple to celebrate, like my birthday. I don't really have a good explanation for this – The natural urge is to examine my childhood for an answer, except that I did have parties and what not from age six (the first year I can remember) to 21 (the last time I had a major party solely in my honor, which features a keg of Sam Adams). So, there was clearly an emphasis on it.

I think my “who cares?” attitude has developed as I've aged and more distractions and obligations come into play. For example, Fourth of July will forever be dead to me because of the Bristol parade. In 2007, I had to cover it for The Bristol Phoenix, and it was one of the most miserable days of my life. Because the streets and parking get ridiculous, I had to be there at 5 a.m. It was about 90 degrees the entire day, and except for some small breaks for water and what not, I was out there covering it until 2 p.m., I believe. Because I just wanted to get it over with, I then hung around the office and typed up copy for about three hours. I think all told, I did 3,000 to 5,000 words on the friggin' parade.

(On the plus side, I got second place at the Rhode Island Press Association awards for my coverage. On the negative side, nobody even told me I was nominated for it, so I wasn't there to accept it. Instead, I was seeing Iron Man, which was good, but I could have seen that any old night.)

A past parade experience – the St. Patrick's Day parade in Newport – was no better. Even though there was a steady pouring, there was no attempt to delay or postpone it. Things got worse as the day wore on, because the temperature plummeted and I was covered in a nice layer of snow. Ugh. At this point, I was 19 or 20, so some youthful enthusiasm must have carried me through it. I remember going back to The Newport Daily News office and trying to dry my soggy notes, 20 pages worth, on a heater, along with my socks and shoes. To add insult to injury, I had stupidly told my fellow intern that I would work for her the next day, which I learned was the busiest police log day of the year because of all the arrests from the god damn parade. There was literally just a newspaper page worth of arrests in Monday's edition of the paper, and I wrote up about 80 percent of them. Ugh.

Nonetheless, I feel obligated to give a shout-out to the best America-centric superhero: Captain America. I think Marvel has generally done a good job protecting his image by having him take proper stands, such as against the Vietnam War and sacrificing himself for the cause of freedom as opposed to authoritarian rule in “Civil War.”

I am surprised he hasn't had his own movie, but then again, who could play him? I hate when the backgrounds and ethnicities of characters are changed for movies, so that rules out the Rock, who otherwise is a natural choice to me. You want someone who looks big and tough without being so huge that he would be menacing (Vinnie Jones, a.k.a. Bullet Tooth Tony from Snatch). John Cena has the perfect look, but The Marine and 12 Rounds (and his promo work) demonstrate that he doesn't have the acting chops. Referencing Snatch again, Jason Statham would be perfect, except that he is British.

Ideally, I would want a big name actor to get the part, but the choices are kind of limited. Ben Affleck wouldn't be a horrible choice, but he is already cast in the Marvel universe as Daredevil; you can't turn around and then make him be Captain America instead. Likewise, even though they're different universes, I think Matt Damon is too synonymous with Jason Bourne to pull double-duty as Captain America. George Clooney is too old now, Brad Pitt probably isn't interested, Edward Norton is the Hulk / Bruce Banner, and Johnny Depp is too slight (thin) and too faggy. If he wasn't already Wolverine, Hugh Jackman would be perfect.

However, I think casting a newcomer or low-scale actor could be a big mistake. It hasn't worked out well the last couple times it has been tried. Hayden Christensen sucked as Anakin Skywalker; I know people like to make the dialogue excuse, but Mace Windu, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Emperor Palpatine and Yoda didn't come off as whiny bitches like he did. I don't even remember the guy they cast in Superman Returns, but even though that film made about $200 billion, there is no talk of a sequel because the whole thing sort of blew.

I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody decent though, so I'll ask you, my gentle readers (to steal something from the late great Ann Landers): Who would you cast as Captain America?

How The Sausage Is Made: Journalism

Because of the success of shows like Dirty Jobs, and the good response to my old entry about substitute teaching, I thought I'd do a series of entries about how some professions work. Obviously, I'm going to stick more to things I have firsthand knowledge about, unless this gets really popular, in which case I'll reach out and try to (gasp!) actually interview some people.

Anyway, because it is one of the few “real” jobs I've had, let's start with journalism. There is also the very real possibility that by the time I finish typing this sentence, every paper but The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal will be shuttered. (And even then, The New York Times looked painfully out-of-touch in this recent Daily Show piece (video link). So maybe just The Post and The WSJ will survive the newspaper holocaust.)

I'll get to the doom and gloom later though. For now, I'll focus on how a newspaper is actually run. First, the key to remember is that practically everything is driven by advertisement sales. On a basic level, this means that the size of the paper is normally set by the number of display ads sold, since classifieds has its own section. Rarely is a paper's size driven by content, unless the story is so important (i.e. an expose on a local police chief's cushy benefits, the one real-life example I saw) that it demands it.

You would think this would create some sort of ethical dilemma, but there would be more practical problems during my three years or so as a news reporter on the college and professional level. For example, one week I would be furiously chopping all my eight stories I had to about 500 words, because that would be the only space left after the ads and photos were laid out. The next week, or even the same week for the sister community's paper, we might have double the size, meaning I'd have to stretch the stories I wrote. Often, I wouldn't know the paper's size until the day before deadline, so I'd have to scramble to shorten or lengthen stories on the night before deadline.

In my professional career, I wrote primarily for a weekly, which also carries time management problems that I admittedly didn't handle great. My inclination was to always wait until as long as I could to start a pressing story, whereas editors would encourage me to start as soon as I could. For example, start and try to complete a budget story at the start of the news week, Wednesday, even though it wouldn't appear in print until the following Wednesday.

My training was primarily with the Cigar, which printed four days a week, and another Rhode Island paper that was a daily. I think the immediacy of both helped me; I have an intense fear of failure, and with a daily deadline, I produced some good work for both. My time at the weeklies wasn't so great, because I knew that even self-imposed deadlines could be doing a disservice to the reader. I had problems just finishing (or even starting) something and then putting it aside, when it's possible something could have changed between when I started and deadline. And when the paper can swell to 30 or 40 pages during the summer, and you have two full-time reporters and a part-timer on staff, it means you have to be producing throughout the week.

Things started to get even tighter right before I was laid off, as the paper's deadline was pushed to the morning before that town's weekly council meeting. So much for the printed paper being the best source and watchdog for government action. Freelance budgets were also nibbled to the bone, management wouldn't pay out any overtime without a note signed in blood, employees were obviously being or about to be laid off, and for some reason, there was a resistance to using the local colleges for free intern support, except for one editor.

With such an ominous air hanging over the place, the quality obviously fell off a bit. It's almost impossible for anyone to work at maximum quality when you have the threat of the axe hanging over your head at all times. I can't say this was a factor in my own situation – I didn't think I'd get cut, since it meant the two remaining sports guys would have to cover about a dozen high schools by themselves. Uh, whoops!

Anyway, at most smaller papers – think The Chariho Times, The Narragansett Times, The Bristol Phoenix, Newport This Week – you generally have at least one staff reporter that will cover just town issues. This ranges from features on the town's oldest residents and bake sales by Girl Scout Troop 117 to investigative stories on corruption at town hall. Generally, this reporter will also shoot some of their own photographs as well. A staff photographer will help out with the bigger or better assignments.

Two to six pages are also normally cleared for sports, sometimes in its own B or C-section, although almost every Rhode Island paper now has their sports department split over several towns. i.e. One sports reporter or editor will cover Chariho, Narragansett and South Kingstown, while another takes Exeter/West Greenwich, North Kingstown and Coventry. (If you're a private high school or a college, don't expect regular coverage, unless you're having an unusually good season in a sport, or if a parent complains.) If two teams in the coverage area are facing off – NK vs. SK – then that game will normally be covered, regardless of the sport, and run in both papers.

There are a few layers beyond these front-line writers. Generally, there is a city / town editor, someone who will edit the work submitted by the reporters and work in conjunction with the layout personnel / design experts to decide how to fit things into the paper. This person will also sometimes function as a part-time reporter, or if they prefer to write, more of a full-time reporter than a full-time editor.

After that, most papers have a managing editor, who normally looks at each week's paper for a variety of towns. I think every paper in Rhode Island, excluding The Providence Journal, now belongs to a local chain, so the managing editor position exists pretty much everywhere. All papers have a publisher; think of them as the owner of a sports franchise. Some are incredibly hands-off and let their managing editors do everything, while others are the complete opposite. Most fall somewhere in-between.

This is the primary editorial (content) hierarchy for most places, which is the area I'm most familiar with. All papers also have a similar setup for their business and advertising wings, although I'm less versed in specific positions for that side, except at the collegiate level.

As far as salary goes, I started at the high end of the spectrum for an entry-level reporter at a small weekly... $25,000 ($12.00 an hour). Try not to laugh. For comparison's sake, assistant managers at McDonald's made more than I did. Even more sadly, most entry-level journalism work is closer to $20,000 than $25,000. Photographers, design and layout specialists earned similar salary, from what little shop talk I had on the manner. A typical pay raise is 3 to 8 percent, although in this market, you are luckier if your pay isn't slashed. Most companies still let you opt into health and 401k plans, although at such a meager salary, I couldn't afford either.

Before the newspaper industry began tanking, the best way to get a good raise normally was to just find a new job. Once you got that offer, you either forced your employer to match, or more often, moved to a new paper. Rhode Island is a bad example, because there aren't any real papers between the small weeklies and dailies, and the huge metro (Projo). But as an example, a reporter from a small weekly in Rhode Island might move on to a mid-sized paper in another state, then move on to a major metro, like The Providence Journal or The Boston Globe (which is getting its ass handed to it by The Boston Herald, by the way).