________________________________________________________________________ Interoffice Memorandum ________________________________________________________________________

TO: FROM: SUBJECT: DATE: CC:

Mara Shalhoup DePaul UIP 250 Student - Deanna Shilkus Chicago Reader Proposal of Communication 10/15/13 Drew Hunt

________________________________________________________________________ My experience interning at The Chicago Reader to this date has been educational and inspirational. Working in the office for a few weeks now, I have been able to gain an understanding of the work ethic and strict time restraint the job requires, as well as the diversity of the content that needs to be organized. A weekly publication is a stressful commitment. The Reader was founded in 1971 for the exact reason that a few students from Carleton University wanted an alternative magazine that focused on everyday life in Chicago. In order to get such an overwhelming job started, four young students saved up money by not working and invested $2 million of earned investment into the newspaper. They moved their headquarters offices to the loop. Four years later, the publication was starting to see success. The first issue was 8 pages long and doubled in circulation by 1979. Most of the writers are freelance, but the content stays out of the ordinary breaking news of the day and focuses on arts and culture, film, and music. The Chicago Sun-Times is a parent publication of the Reader. The key customers are the younger generation in the city because the paper is free on newsstands. With a small office of writers and editors of about 25 people, the leading sources of revenue and funding come from advertisements, just like most newspapers in todays time. Because of this, there is one head editor, along with associate editors, editorial assistants, and section editors. The digital content section contains three editors who manage the entire website and its contents. The Reader is primarily an in-depth entertainment of the standard SunTimes. Its main competitor is the RedEye of the Chicago Tribune, however the Reader covers theater listings, art contributions to the community, but most importantly music reviews and new artists to check out. The Reader was founded specifically to focus on music.

As a small office comes together to work hard to cover all contents of the newspaper and its sections in print, there is a lot of communication required to coordinate what assignments need to be done. In a modern society, technology allows for emailing and texting as a medium of communication. However, the Reader, like other newspaper publications, can sometimes have difficulty in having face-to-face communication within the office. Therefore, it is important that while emailing does make the job easier, to talk to each other person and create that human interaction. This is how the editors get to know each other better and allows for a more comfortable working environment. This will help improve meeting deadlines and at a faster rate, create a space where everyone can voice their opinions, and allow for a more cohesive staff overall. In an article titled Background: Workplace Oral Communication highlights the same point, The changing nature of business further underscores the importance of oral communication skills. With the increasing use of technology, issues of quality, innovation and competitiveness take on a higher workplace focus (Crosling, Ward)1. The authors go on to write, Indeed, communication and social interaction are the means for achieving occupational activity, enabling employees to learn and acquire new skills that facilitate the development of solutions to problems (Crosling, Ward)2. The article goes onto highlight the importance of the role of language and communication in human society. Communication in general is shaped by outside factors that might not be articulated clearly through a piece of technology. So in order to improve this situation, I suggest that meetings are held in the conference room at least once a week. Stories or blogs need to be assigned in person. Checking in with each other throughout the day is important too. Editing stories and talking about ones in the process should be engaging. Editors need to get together in person to discuss what could be improve. The Reader is a very social, friendly publication to its readers and the city, so it only makes sense that the interaction doesnt stop there. Utilizing more social interaction within the office will allow for the editors to take less time to get a more thoroughly discussed assignment. Email and technology simply does not allow for this.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889490600000314 http://www.chicagoreader.com/