So far I’ve been “scooped” on a story I was supposed to write twice. Considering I work for a weekly and not a daily, that’s not too bad, but it’s also brought up a couple of observations.
- One: Daily newspapers seem to run on nearly the same schedule as weeklies.
As far as features and researched, well written stories go, they are no different. I get scooped, but it’s a week after I first heard about the story, so it easily could have gotten into our weekly in the same time the story took to hit the daily. Strange.
- Two: Quality of information is relative.
The two major issues I’ve read about in other papers before I had a chance to print anything were covered poorly. The lesson here, if there is one, is that I put something on the back burner for a reason. It’s funny to be working in the “news” and to notice some else’s slipshod journalism.
That’s not meant to be a slam at the other reporters, but just an observation that we all slip up sometimes, and especially when a story is categorized as “breaking.”What it all boils down to is that one can be both burned by competition and burn competition. Both happen on a regular basis in the newspaper business.
