Some nice low-key journalistic acknowledgement
Back on the last Thursday of September, my editor at the Austin Weekly News asked me if I could cover a meeting in Oak Park. As I think I mentioned before, he does the double-duty as one of the reporters for Wednesday Journal Inc's flagship newspaper, the Wednesday Journal, which covers Oak Park and the nearby River Forest. It was one of those situations where he couldn't in two places at once, so he asked me to go and take notes.
This was before I was fired by the Niles Bugle, but I didn't have anything for Austin Weekly News that week, and, as I wrote before, I needed to write at least one article a week for them to be able to pay bills. Between that and the fact that I didn't have anything else to do, I agreed.
The meeting actually wound up being pretty interesting. Members of Oak Park (and Oak Park adjacent) congregations, community service organization and government agencies met to discuss the state of race relations and income inequality, and how, while the village likes to think itself (not entirely without justification0 as more diverse then most Chicagoland suburbs, it isn't exactly an integration paradise.
My editor asked for notes, and for context behind those notes, so I wound up simply writing an article sans introduction, because I didn't know any other way to do it. He wound up keeping most of the text, cutting off about a third of it for space and adding his own introduction - which is why the article has two bylines.
A week later, I went to the WJI offices to pick up a complimentary copy of the issue that printed it. And I was surprised to discover that the editorial page referenced it. Which was a nice feeling. Showed that my work was appreciated.
This was before I was fired by the Niles Bugle, but I didn't have anything for Austin Weekly News that week, and, as I wrote before, I needed to write at least one article a week for them to be able to pay bills. Between that and the fact that I didn't have anything else to do, I agreed.
The meeting actually wound up being pretty interesting. Members of Oak Park (and Oak Park adjacent) congregations, community service organization and government agencies met to discuss the state of race relations and income inequality, and how, while the village likes to think itself (not entirely without justification0 as more diverse then most Chicagoland suburbs, it isn't exactly an integration paradise.
My editor asked for notes, and for context behind those notes, so I wound up simply writing an article sans introduction, because I didn't know any other way to do it. He wound up keeping most of the text, cutting off about a third of it for space and adding his own introduction - which is why the article has two bylines.
A week later, I went to the WJI offices to pick up a complimentary copy of the issue that printed it. And I was surprised to discover that the editorial page referenced it. Which was a nice feeling. Showed that my work was appreciated.