4 ms·

I am a huge supporter of creatives and artists. That being said, I have only partial sympathy for this guy. Work is work and we all need it, particularly crea

I am a huge supporter of creatives and artists. That being said, I have only partial sympathy for this guy. Work is work and we all need it, particularly creatives, but when you take a job writing about things you don't know anything about, you can't complain that you're being asked to do so. If he hadn't seen the most popular shows on television, he took a job he wasn't qualified for. That's fine, but then, he couldn't be bothered to research the industry he was covering - when that research required sitting in front of a TV and watching The Simpsons. That's not exactly slave labor. It's a shame that content production has become the ad mill that it has, and writing about that from an objective viewpoint with all of this guy's internal data would have been good journalism. But I have a hard time feeling sorry for someone who got paid $35k a year to write about cartoons and couldn't be bothered to watch some of them in his spare time.

thyrsus 15y ago
I inferred that he was being asked to write about 16 (one article every half hour for eight hours) specific show episodes for a deadline about 12 hours after they aired; even with a Tivo, how would you both watch and write?
- earbitscom 15y ago
  I believe he said it was fewer articles (something like 10), but what I'm referring to is his comment about having never seen many of the shows. The minute you take a job writing about television, you get started familiarizing yourself with the most popular shows. When you're assigned to a new show, you watch one or two episodes. If you're covering some more often than others, you put that one on while you fold your laundry. It's not as if he has a job reviewing tourist locations. Point is, you become an expert and suck it up. Particularly in a field this competitive, you spend time outside of the actual writing getting up to speed. To suggest that's too much to ask lacks a certain professionalism.

thyrsus 15y ago

I inferred that he was being asked to write about 16 (one article every half hour for eight hours) specific show episodes for a deadline about 12 hours after they aired; even with a Tivo, how would you both watch and write?

earbitscom 15y ago
I believe he said it was fewer articles (something like 10), but what I'm referring to is his comment about having never seen many of the shows. The minute you take a job writing about television, you get started familiarizing yourself with the most popular shows. When you're assigned to a new show, you watch one or two episodes. If you're covering some more often than others, you put that one on while you fold your laundry. It's not as if he has a job reviewing tourist locations. Point is, you become an expert and suck it up. Particularly in a field this competitive, you spend time outside of the actual writing getting up to speed. To suggest that's too much to ask lacks a certain professionalism.