Bloggage

Hi!
Lots of you probably don't know anything about me (even though I know lots about many of you), but that is likely to change the more I blog here.
I'm Jackie Torok, the metro editor at the Morning News. I've been at the paper for almost 13 years, starting out as a reporter/obit clerk and then working my way up to metro editor. You may also address me as high priestess of all things funky, a title bestowed upon me by one of my best friends. You'll soon learn I'm a strange little woman. Yet, I haven't come up with a catchy name for my blog. Gotta let some ideas brew in my brain for awhile. I'm sure I'll come up with something eventually. But my boss, regional editor Harry Logan, would rather I just get to business in the meantime, soooooo...
In fact, let me go ahead and clear that up while I'm thinking about it: I am a woman. I know with a name like Jackie, it could go either way, and it's common for me to get snail mail, faxes and e-mails for Mr. Torok. That would be either my dad or my brother, however.
Also, about that difficult-for-many-to-pronounce last name ... I think it's pretty obvious I'm not from these parts. I'm a native of Cleveland but grew up in North Carolina, and now I'm the only Torok in South Carolina. In case you're curious, it's pronounced TORE-ock. I'll have to blog sometime later about the many takes on Torok I've heard through the years here. They're pretty funny.
Anyway, by doing this blog, I'm hoping to help folks understand a little more about how things work here at the paper. I'll also use it to blow off a little steam sometimes and offer some random observations, too. Thanks in advance for reading this.
Let me start by explaining my title a bit. As metro editor, I'm in charge of our reporting staff, news stringers and the obituary clerk. I keep track of and schedule who's covering what stories when, and I coordinate local news coverage with our media partners WBTW News13 and scnow.com. I'll expound on who does what at the paper in subsequent blogs.
Right now, though, I feel compelled to vent a little about something on my mind. That's the Florence School District 1 bond referendum that voters in the district didn't pass Tuesday.
I don't have kids and I don't live in Florence, so my beef isn't with the outcome of the vote.
No, I'm peeved because I've heard more than once this week -- from people who say they read the Morning News but didn't know anything about the referendum until the election -- that the district tried to sneak the issue onto the ballot.
That's bunk. If you read the Morning News, you should have been aware of the issue long before Tuesday.
I'm wondering, how did they miss the 20 or so stories about the referendum our education reporter, Shireese Bell, has written this year? Most of her stories about the referendum ran on the front page. And one of her first stories about the issue was published as early as February 2006! All of those stories could be read on scnow.com, too, if you missed them in the paper. And I'm not even counting the multiple reports WBTW did, as well.
I can't explain how or why these readers felt ambushed by the referendum being on the ballot. All I can say is, we can do 200 stories about an issue, but we can't force folks to read -- or comprehend -- them.
Yeah, I'm not only weird, I'm sometimes cranky. So thanks again for reading and letting me get that out of my system. I wasn't expecting blogging to be so cathartic!
Check my blog later to learn the difference between the metro editor and the news editor. Trust me, they are not the same thing.
See you later!

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