Author: addie

I want to start my thoughts tonight by saying that my heart goes out to the victims of this horrific tragedy in Boston this afternoon. At time of writing there are 3 dead and 117 injured according to multiple media sources.

Al Tompkins posted today one of the things that I was thinking watching the video coming out of Boston. In all of the video that I have watched of the horrific events that transpired this afternoon in Boston, you can clearly see two groups of people running in the opposite directions of the crowds: the first responders and the journalists.

Both of those groups managed to put aside personal safety, as they had no idea how many more bombs could be in the area, as they ran into that area. The first responders, heroically, tending to the injured and the journalists, witnessing the horrific things that we do, to keep the people at home informed of what was happening, to tell the stories of the people down there, and to get out the emergency information needed to keep people safe.

I don’t want to downplay the actions of the first responders, and I don’t want to overshadow the magnitude of what happened today. But… The journalists working on the ground will be forever scarred by the events that happened today. Well…not just those on the ground, but their producers, tape editors, control room crews, etc. who have all seen the un-edited, raw video that is coming in from the scene. Those kinds of pictures, many of which you never see on your television screens at home, leave a lasting impression on you. Believe me when I say this, as I have first-hand experience having been in a newsroom on 9/11/01 and watching an un-edited CNN NewsSource feed from New York City. And those who have covered the event on the ground or in the control room today will be working late into the night, running mostly on adrenaline. It won’t fully hit them until later tonight, or tomorrow, or next week what exactly happened today. I imagine that among the journalists (and first responders) that there will be a lot of “OMG” moments to come.

Dear Marquette Tribune Kids,

I graduated from Marquette 9 years ago. In those 9 years, I’ve gone from working a stable, full-time job, with benefits in TV News, to working a part-time job, albeit in a major television market, with unstable hours and no benefits. Why does this matter? Because everyone has had to make cutbacks. That’s the way the world is working these days. Blame it on whatever you’d like, it’s reality.

I spoke with a number of people over the last few days who had knowledge of the “#LongLiveTheTrib” Twitter campaign, as well as the online petition. Especially, after having to put a call out onto the hashtag to figure out what they were actually protesting.

The current students I heard from are saying things like: “it’s not fair”, “we spend $30k in tuition so we deserve to have a full MU Trib”, and that the Trib “helps us get jobs.” Guess what? You don’t “deserve” anything. Rule number one of life: Don’t act like you’re entitled to anything. Hate to burst your bubble, you’re not. Besides, I have it on good authority that the overall costs of printing the additional pages is only a small portion of the money budgeted to you. That the majority of it goes to pay student reporters. Hmm… Maybe that is a spot to start looking at reductions? The TV and Radio kids have always historically done the grunt work for the experience of putting on a live, local newscast, and moving up the chain to one of the more lucrative staff positions, which I hear are actually paid these days (they were not back in my day.)

And while I know you’ve published and re-tweeted a number of alumni who are supportive of the Tribune, I have chatted those who stand on the other side of the argument. The side of the argument that you have conveniently left out of your online articles, might I add.

I am not alone in thinking that you are coming off sounding like a bunch of stuck-up, spoiled brats. I have had a few fellow alumni, not just other BREC majors, who have said “thank you” to me for calling you out on this. While it’s a small percentage of the overall alumni population who have even responded to what is going on, you have to remember, you never know who is out there watching, reading and formulating opinions of your actions as journalists.

Many of you keep repeating that writing for the Marquette Tribune leads to jobs in the industry, but I want you to stop and think for a minute: “What if an alumni of power disagreed with me, how would the affect me?” Remember, the internet is forever. Now, I’m not implying anything about myself personally. But you never know who I might know. Or who might stumble on my blog.

Ok. Back one moment to the hashtag. I am no expert at online messaging, I don’t even try to play one on TV. But if I click on a hashtag on Twitter, and can’t tell you what people are upset about, then we have a big problem.

Sincerely,

A. Chernow