The end of an erra
I should have posted this a while ago and I have been meaning to, just had to find the correct way of saying certain things, and since Damon C. Williams who I met last summer has recently departed from the Philadelphia Daily News I thought now would be the perfect time to post this. Who would have ever thought that the one and only Peak Johnson would be dismissing himself from his one true love, The North Philly Metropolis.
“Well, that’s unheard of.” remarked a friend of mine as I told him the unfortunate news.
You know I never really pictured myself leaving the NPM on such a negative note, actually I never really pictured myself actually leaving because I knew I would always stay connected with the paper in some way. I was one of the founding editors for the Metropolis , not yet a seasoned journalist, but just two years ago I was a teenager who knew what others in my age range were looking for in a newspaper. Since being with the paper when it was just a small magazine and hanging onto it during the highs and lows my assumption was that I brought a lot to the table, guess I was wrong.
Though as I told my superviser, unexpectedly, she was only giving me more of a reason to leave the paper and by doing so she demonstrated what really mattered, the end result. Not how much time it took to lay out the paper, edit articles, collect boxes, call advertisers, etc. Though this had been apparent from the begining and I just chose not to see it, it did does not matter what goes in the paper or what the editor goes through, just as long as it gets done. This probably exists in a lot of work places.
The problem with the health edition of the North Philly Metropolis was that, in my opinion the themes of the articles did not get as much attention as they should have, they were not as focoused as in past issues. I also felt that the instructor was not doing all that she could have done with the teens in terms of getting them excited about journalism. From watching all of the past editors/instructors dealing with the NPM, more of their time and committment was given to their students and the paper, it not only meant something to me and the others but to them as well.
My thought is that to get a teenager involved in journalism, which means only writing and reading to them, you have to let them know that their writng is and will be read by people in the community: friends, siblings, family, schools, etc. When teaching the fundamentals of writing make it interesting, bring in people who write for a living and get paid for it, not just adults but other teens as well. Introduce them to MTV’s The Paper …this show is funny, serious, heartbreaking, and because its from MTV might get teens excited to watch.
Myself and the instructor never really got a chance to meet and talk about anything. It was either by email, a few minutes after work, or during work. With the 12th issue it was nothing to really worry about since most of the writing had been gathered from the summer plus wrting from the forthcoming Fall school year, making a pretty solid issue that could be put together. With the current issue that was being worked on at the time some articles were too short which left a lot of space, some didn’t make sense, and some looked to be a little plagerized. I took contributing articles, my own writing and beefed up the paper, the instructor didn’t like that and even sent my a rather rude email.
After taking my articles out of the unpublished paper and handing it off to her, the last words she said were, “Peak, you’re an idiot.” I was surprised and really didn’t know what to say but left it alone, its a new year, and I have to move on.
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