I work at one of those "rags" as Lifestyles Editor, and I try my hardest every issue to put out something worthy. I think I'm doing ok because I've placed every year in the Tennessee Press Association since I've been the Lifestyles Editor.
If it's anything like the paper where I work, I can guess what's going on. The old saying "You get what you pay for" applies here. Most small newspapers are losing money and can't afford to pay their workers a whole lot. To release a little bit of personal information, I didn't even make $20,000 this year. Luckily, I have a husband who makes pretty good money, or I wouldn't be able to stay there. I do it because I love it, not because of the money.
Anyway, at our paper, they hire people fresh out of school (like they did with me) or people who don't have any experience at all. They have to learn under fire. My journalism classes didn't teach me everything I needed to know to work at a newspaper.
We don't have the budget to hire copy editors, so we have to do all of that ourselves. I write almost all of the feature stories that go in my section (occassionally, I use a freelancer, but that's maybe once a month if that), I do all my own editing, I do the layout for my section. I'm only human, so grammar and typos don't always get caught. I'm very diligent, so I catch most of them.
Right now, our publisher wants to cut our newsroom by half. If he did that, the situation would be even worse. Our editor-in-chief has tried desperately for the last six months to help us all keep our jobs. Two weeks ago, he suffered a heart attack. He almost died. We all think it's because of the stress he's been under.
Anyway, just thought I'd share a little insight into what actually goes on in at a small newspaper. I love my job, don't get me wrong. I get to write the happy news: weddings, engagements, feature stories. But, because of electronic media, readership and subscribers are way down. I'm almost afraid small, community-minded newspapers will go away, and that would be a shame.
) Anyway the caption read something like: "EMS arrived on scene and threatened the victims before transporting them to the hospital."
