Question: What endangered trade is about to be depicted as a fun career choice on a young-skewing cable network?
Answer: Not typewriter salesman, but you’re close.
OMG, you guys. Working for a newspaper is way cool. MTV is, like, proving it. Being an editor, especially, is right up there with being on “The Hills.”
The truth is, these are desperate times in the newspaper business. Papers large and small are laying off and buying out staffers in unheard of numbers, slashing sections and cutting back on newsprint. Print publications are victims of a shift in attention (and ad dollars) to the Internet, compounded by the bad economy.
Undaunted, MTV has chosen a high-school newspaper as the setting for a reality show, “The Paper,” premiering this week.
While old-timers lament the state of the business, high-schoolers everywhere may be drawn into the fun, camaraderie, glory and deadline pressures of the print medium via what turns out to be a passable TV reality show.
More power to them.
Before anyone tells you newspapers are going the way of the buggy whip, remember that, in the digital age, the content still is going to have to come from somewhere, even if newspapers as we know them evolve into something else.
Why not introduce up-and-comers to the business via a reality show that depicts editorial jobs as exciting?
An independent documentary, also called “The Paper,” following a year in the life of a college paper, worked the same beat in 2007.
Now it’s time for the high-school reality edition.
The first installment launched Monday with repeats through the month; the ongoing time slot for eight episodes is 8:30 p.m. Mondays on MTV.
Initially, the show is more about gossiping than writing, more about cliques than copy.
The opening episode follows the bickering competition among a few of the students to be named editor in chief of a first-rate school paper. Naturally, this devolves into a popularity contest. Somewhere later in the season, perhaps, we’ll come across some actual journalism.
For now, the producers don’t let content get in the way of a good time.
“The Paper,” an MTV doc/soap, chronicles the lives of seven student staffers at Cypress Bay High School in Weston, Fla., and their stalwart adviser, Rhonda Weiss, as they produce The Circuit, the school paper.
Amanda is outwardly self-confident and sure that she’s the frontrunner for the editor-in-chief job. She’s also at odds with the rest of the staff, who think she’s lording it over them. Amanda understands grammar, editing and reporting better than she understands people, leadership and friendship.
Giana, the clubs editor, wants to be the next Barbara Walters. Trevor, Giana’s boyfriend, is a graphics and computer whiz. Cassia is Amanda’s best friend and, as entertainment editor, something of a peacekeeper in the group. Adam, the business manager, thinks he’d make an excellent editor in chief. Alex, the sports editor, is superb at what he does but hopes to move on to larger responsibilities. Dan, the staff writer, is a class clown. And then there’s Weiss, the school’s newspaper adviser since 2002. The Circuit, with a staff of 60, has won numerous awards and is a great example to smaller schools of what high-school journalism can be.
OMG, what if Amanda gets the in-chief job? No way! Here’s an off-the-hook idea: Let’s refuse to take orders from her!
The Circuit staffers, minus Amanda, gather over burgers and fries to talk about (what else?) Amanda, setting her up as the outcast before she even has a chance to prove herself. A standoff emerges as they await the next year’s newspaper job posting from Mrs. Weiss.
Bad-mouthing her to her face, gossiping behind her back, making fun of her work ethic . . . it’s standard-issue reality show drivel except for the matter at hand. They’re fighting over newspapering rather than, say, cooking, designing, dating or sharing a camera-rigged house.
These, after all, are the smart kids. They may be the ones who stick with the medium and usher it into the future. At least their participation here may encourage others to take up the challenge.
Joanne Ostrow’s column appears Tuesday, Friday and Sunday: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost .
