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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

BUG

“Good bye!” I walk out, stomping, on the paper’s editor – the “Bug” as I called him, though never openly. With every detail, every headline, in fact with every fact, he had a problem. And a solution of course – his own suggestions. No more wounds of the editorial razor. From newspaper journalist, I move to be a citizen journalist. Proudly so!

“This is Kane…” I write in my intro to the first submission I am required to submit with my blog post on the citizen journalism site where I mean to make more each month than the paper without being a hazard to those precious trees sustaining our planet. “Finding the freedom to be true to the word at last…” I finish the post. Free of editor’s professionalism. Whew!

“Your submission’s title has negative adjectives,” I receive in less than 30 minutes from the citizen journalism site. “Please correct them.”

I feel cracked inside somewhere. Negative adjectives! Was I supposed to find euphemisms for words describing a raped-to-murder incident? I hit on the ‘Reply’ button. But before I start with writing a stormy reply, I see the end line of the message sent to me: “Computer generated message. Please don’t reply!”

A computer, my editor? I sigh and look at the computer screen. It’s so insensitive, even more than my editor at the job I just left, and now wished had kept. A while later, I am dialing the paper’s number.

“Can I talk to Bug… I mean Mr. Borneo?”