Raw, but c*nsored blabbing and blogging of a young journalista
and local news producer in Southern New England.
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Sunday, February 23, 2003

HOW MUCH DOES SWEEPS SUCK? I'LL TELL YOU HOW MUCH SWEEPS SUCKS!.....

Apparently I haven't made a blog entry since sweeps has begun. Why does that not surprise me?

This week has been awful in my newsroom. Monday and Tuesday, we simply jacked up our coverage for the 20 or so inches of unending snow. Hotel rooms were reserved for those who lived far away. God knows how many of the day- and night-siders slept in each others' rooms. I can tell you this; it was all too obvious to many of them I talked to that several of them enjoyed the hotel's bar. Remind me to take advantage of an offer like that next time I have the chance.

I say "simply," though nothing can be called simple when it came to the coverage of the President's Day Snowstorm. Tuesday morning, the middle of the storm, we added an extra hour, an extra reporter, even an extra anchor! I taped it. Maybe one of these days when I have a day off and it's no longer sweeps I'll take a look at it and giggle. If only it was a director's track version.

The worst thing about the huge snow coverage was the closings ticker hoo-ha. All I'll say about this is that people are stupid. STUPID I tell you!

And then Thursday night rolled around. I guess everybody in the f%%king country needed a ratings spike. A##holes. Everybody and his brother called us repeatedly demanding one of our reporters give each of their stations a live hit, a custom hit, something personalized that the other folks didn't have. Remind me the next time any little thing happens to call every station about six times and make sure I speak to the same person to give them a dose of their own medicine. Just doing our jobs my eye.

As for us, I'm sure our news content is giving all of its commercial time up in favor of wall-to-wall coverage. This is such an awful thing. Everyone's saying things like this don't happen in Rhode Island. Well, did you think it would never happen here? Have we not learned the lesson? ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN ANYWHERE.

So in search of therapy I decided to go to Toronto next weekend to see my best friend. Because of strength and fatigue issues I didn't get to looking for tickets until the Sunday before the Thursday I wanted to go. Most tickets are now between $800 AND $1000. I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, don't want to spend that much. I haven't told my friend yet; she's going to be disappointed, to say nothing of how p*ssed off I am.

THAT'S how much this sucks.

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 2/23/2003 02:02:00 PM ... Email this entry ...
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