Sunday, March 29, 2009

Adventures in Communism

Upon telling my boss that I wouldn’t be able to work on Monday, he said something to the extent of “Nothing quite like hanging with the communist pinkos of Saint Louis, eh?” Cue hilarious laughing. Well, apparently I’m a communist pinko because I loved it there.

I visited the River Front Times offices to meet with staff writer Keegan Hamilton. After a semi-long drive to the loop, I wondered into the building finding the directory going to the main offices located on the second floor. Seeing as no one was at the reception desk, I wondered to the staff floor where the door was locked with a fancy number lock. Following a phone call to Mr. Hamilton’s business line, I was let in.
Mr. Hamilton showed me around the office. I met Ian Froeb, the food critic. I was told of how things generally go and what a usual week is like. We talked of my future as a possible journalist and how much improvement our school paper needs. Having a copy of The Prowl handy, I let him look through it. I explained my complaints and he candidly agreed that we need better pictures.

At ten thirty, the weekly staff meeting began with every significant writer present. Many handshakes occurred on the way to the meeting. Tom Finker, editor and chief, brought the news that the actual size of the paper would be shrinking. The staff’s response was surprisingly lax. It appears they know of the slow death of traditional print as talk of online and blogging started to pop up. A grand stack of paper containing the statistics of which story’s got the highest amount of hits and which one’s got the lowest.

As the meeting closed, Mr. Hamilton walked back to his office. I snagged a couple quick pics, just for the blog. I wanted to include Ian. He mumbled something about how I can’t take his picture while I wasn’t really paying attention. I laughed because I thought he was joking, but when I looked up I found him missing. Mr. Hamilton explained that since he’s a food critique he didn’t want restaurants to know his face. It made sense. We wrapped things up. Hamilton walked me out and we shook hands.

I proceeded to spend an hour in vintage vinyl. It was heaven.





Joel Samson Berntsen (That’s What You Get-Paramore)

4 comments:

Brandon Foster said...

When I read the title, I thought this was about me. lol

Joel Samson Berntsen said...

Well, I was kinda like what's something that's been reoccuring in my life lately. Then, BAM, I was like, " Communism!"

TL said...

Are you going to shoot pictures for the paper or just write. I would help the photo dept. any way I could if they needed help or advice.

Joel Samson Berntsen said...

Both. I'd probably be the majority of the photo dept. because I'm the only one who seems to care about it... And your help would be very much welcomed.