Here's Your Chance To Work For Fine Woodworking Magazine

[Onboard]

If your interested in the job position, which is an Associate Editor, click on the link below.

Fine Woodworking Magazine says: "We're in search of a new tool jockey journalist. Could it be you?"

http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/30798/help-wanted-in-search-of-an-associate-editor

[BuilderBill]

"Must have some personal woodworking experience."

Great, to be responsible for producing content for the premier woodworking magazine in the US, you need to have "some" woodworking experience???

I guess I'm just getting too old for this BS... It used to be the old saying was: "Them as can't do teach..." Now I guess we need to add "or write for magazines".

Not much more than I expected coming from a publisher that actually published a video of an editor demonstrating it was better to use an angle grinder than a coping saw to cope crown, taking three or four times as long in the process and filling the house with fine sawdust to boot....

Yeah, I'd have to pass on this job. And I've been in CT in the Winter, it gets freaking COLD up there!

YMMV,

Bill

[PaulMarcel]

Not much more than I expected coming from a publisher that actually published a video of an idiot demonstrating it was better to use an angle grinder than a coping saw to cope crown, taking three or four times as long in the process and filling the house with fine sawdust to boot....

:o

Crazy... and who thinks of that and thinks it's cool?! Haven't seen it, yet I assume that was on the Fine Homebuilding side, which got the former tool associate editor from FWW so maybe it'll make an improvement!?

[Guest Trace]

Pleas do not take this as a slam, but the quote is, in fact "Those that can, do. Those who do well, teach". I got caught on this "quote" when in college. Later when teaching, I found the real meaning of the saying in a book titled "Quotes, Sayings, Old Saws and their origins".

[wilburpan]

George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists: Education. Man and Superman, 1903.

"He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches."

http://www.bartleby.com/157/6.html

[Guest Trace]

You are correct. My mistake. G. B. Shaw was not one of my favorites, as he was somewhat different in his thoughts and actions. I was required to read some of his writings in college, but was not required to like them. As a teacher of engineering, I know the adage to not be true, especially in todays college setting. People may think whatever they choose. There is, however, the responsibility for what is said. Thats the part most have a hard time accepting. I appreciate the correction.

[wilburpan]

You are correct. My mistake. G. B. Shaw was not one of my favorites, as he was somewhat different in his thoughts and actions. I was required to read some of his writings in college, but was not required to like them. As a teacher of engineering, I know the adage to not be true, especially in todays college setting. People may think whatever they choose. There is, however, the responsibility for what is said. Thats the part most have a hard time accepting. I appreciate the correction.

Well, I suppose I should contribute something of substance to this thread instead of trivial corrections.

Regarding the previous comments about the amount of woodworking experience needed to write for FWW, or any other woodworking magazine, I would maintain that woodworking and writing are quite different skill sets, and given that at the end of the day FWW is a magazine, writing skills would be paramount. Journalists and writers cover many topics that are not their particular areas of expertise, and they do it well. Conversely, there are many outstanding woodworkers that would have a hard time putting down what they do in print in a manner that is easy to understand for the reader who may not be at the same level of woodworking skill.

As far as the "can't do, teach" issue goes, I'm on faculty at a medical school. Many of the same principles apply. Every day at work, I see many examples of people who are experts in their field who are terrible teachers, and it is possible to teach something that you are not an expert on. But the best teachers have that rare combination of expertise and the ability to pass on that information to students.

[iSawitFirst]

I would think editing skills may trump woodworking skills for this job. After all, you'd be traveling to some of the best woodworkers in the country to do stories. No need to have mad skills.

I should apply.

[BuilderBill]

....But the best teachers have that rare combination of expertise and the ability to pass on that information to students.

My point exactly! I really didn't mean to start a shitestorm-in-a-teacup with my remark, I have absolutely nothing against teachers, most of my family is/was/will be one and my best-beloved "Daddy's Spoiled Rotten Princess" is closing in on her entry into the profession (finally, thank God, about damned time! Woohoo! No more allowance, no more room'n'board, no more car payment and insurance!! In a year I'll have a shop that'll make Norm green with envy and a new 600 VR to boot! ). It was just to make the point you so eloquently expanded on. And that's EXACTLY what I expect from a magazine like FWW: well-written articles from authors who have an extensive familiarity with the subject they're writing about. If they're hiring green grads with journalism majors who also happen to own a cordless drill and built a bookshelf with it and some drywall screws, they can live without my subscription....

Woodworking is a technical profession/obsession, without extensive experience in the field how can you evaluate the value of what you're writing about? You can't, you end up with magazines full of articles about coping crown with a grinder which may be interesting as abstractions but totally without value to someone who actually needs to know the most effective way to accomplish the task. Worse yet, the magazine's reputation lends credence to the misconceptions put forth by the inexperienced writer, leading those new in the craft to assume that, since they read it in FWW, it must be The Gospel.

No one benefits from the situation in the long run, the publisher gets some cheap labor immediately but eventually loses gross sales because the repeat subscribers come to the realization that they ain't getting what they paid for. Newcomers become discouraged in the craft because they're following bad advice and it works out, surprisingly, badly for them. So they give it up and don't renew their subscriptions. Maybe they look somewhere else, maybe they just post their tools on Craigslist. Either way, the profession of woodworking has suffered. Potential advocates have been discouraged, old stalwarts abandoned.

And this is good for who, exactly, in the long run .....?

Maybe I'm getting too old to keep up. I just have a problem with paying for BS from folks who don't know what it is no matter how well they describe it.

Just my $.02 worth,

Bill

[wilburpan]

And that's EXACTLY what I expect from a magazine like FWW: well-written articles from authors who have an extensive familiarity with the subject they're writing about.

You might want to take a look at Popular Woodworking Magazine. Right now, that's my favorite of the newsstand magazines. The articles have all the features that you listed, plus the editorial staff has the sense to let the personality of the writer shine through. That's the thing that I don't like about Fine Woodworking. The articles are edited so heavily to fit the house style that the only way to tell who is writing the article is the byline and the photo. Take those away, and you'd be hard pressed to tell who wrote what.

[Bobby Slack]

There is only one huge drawback ... leaving Southern California for Connecticut? Hmmmmmm

[BuilderBill]

There is only one huge drawback ... leaving Southern California for Connecticut? Hmmmmmm

Never made it to SoCal but if I wouldn't think of leaving North Georgia for CT, that should say something.... YMMV

Bill

[Bobby Slack]

Nice one

There is only one huge drawback ... leaving Southern California for Connecticut? Hmmmmmm

[Gregory Paolini]

It's kind of cool to sit back, and take this all in - I write, I teach, and I woodwork - So It's good to have outside views on it all. Gives me things to think about when I'm planing quartersawn sycamore at the bench.