Lazy Journalists?
The National Union of Journalists has voted to go on strike across the Johnston Group which encompasses such ‘must reads’ as the Scarborough Evening News, the Hemel Hempstead Gazette, and the Morpeth Herald.
How will we cope? More to the point why have they called for strike action?
It seems that the management have installed a system called Atex, which distils their words of wisdom across multiple digital channels simultaneously. Bit complicated that isn’t it? Try this.
When the boyos at Johnston Press write something, they have to edit it themselves, you know, spellchecker, that sort of thing; attach photographs, adjust the size, and then the system takes over and pushes their content out to various hand held devices, twitter, facebook aps, seamless SEO integrates…….and the company have set all this up for them!
Not for them the joys of late night sessions figuring out how to integrate Twitter, or import facebook comments, or ‘thumbnail’ pictures, or adjust the font and the RSS feed…
But they do have to do it in addition to writing – and it has brought them to their knees. Poor loves.
“Ever since the shambolic Atex system was introduced I’ve worked late every single night. One night I was in the office until 10pm.”
Welcome to the world of blogging, where people regularly work 8 or 10 hour days in their ‘paid’ job and then come home to write and edit and attach pictures, and figure out the aps, oh, and everything….
“Atex has been a living hell which has brought staff I know to the brink of serious self-harm.”
Self harm? Dear God!
So far as I know, no blogger has been reduced to self harming from the strain of it all as yet.
“Atex workloads are such that people are having to work 10, 12 and 14 hour days without a break, as outlined by Scribbler, then it won’t be long before JP is facing massive payouts for staff whose health is wrecked.”
But then no blogger has a multi-million pound employer that he can sue.
Any blogger who feels like commiserating with these fragile creatures can apply themselves to the comments section HERE.
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May 1, 2010 at 11:00
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