2nd
Newsroom Tours
Once or twice a week a completely variable group of people is marched through the newsroom on a tour. It could be fifty 6th graders or it could be three college students. You never really know what to expect from the group but you can always expect the same thing from their “guide” who is normally someone who works in the newsroom.
It just so happens that our “Web Desk” is in the middle of the News Desk which, at night, houses our night photo editor and several layout people. On the tour the guide will bring them up to a point that is directly across from me and explain “This is our news desk, at night photo and layout people sit here and connect with editors to layout the paper”. All the while the tourists are staring at me wondering what I’m doing. No doubt I must be laying out something or editing a photo, because that is what happens at this desk.
It really bothers me that the guide does not point out the web folks on the tour but what bothers me far more is that no one asks.
My advice to any aspiring journalists of any variety, don’t be afraid to ask questions of these “experts” that are giving you a tour or showing you the ropes, especially if that question relates to the web. If you have a feeling that the person you are asking won’t know the answer, then that’s the question you must ask.
The hope being that you will both learn something.
