- Web sites where the only contact is a busted general email address
- trying to spell your email address to someone over the phone (they never get it right)
- Threats of subscription cancelations
- People who say “nice to meet you” via email when we have never actually met
- Presumptive emails that demand something along the lines of “add this to your coverage plans”
- Presumptive emails that demand something along the lines of “add us to your links”
- PR people who don’t have any information
- Anonymous internet commentators who make claims of inaccuracy
- Bad newspaper websites
ReportersEmployees of other media outlets who call you asking for your source contact information or other inside details- Journalists who think revealing their political beliefs absolves them of bias (or has anything to do with anything)
- Content thieves
- Content farms
- Not getting any calls back all day then getting five during a 10 minute bathroom break at 4:30.
- Press conferences (hell is other reporters)
- Reporters who don’t use both sides of their notebook paper
- Reporters who gorge on free food at events they’re covering
- Being forced to be a “personal brand” now instead of just a faceless byline
- Person-on-the-street interviews who have strong opinions about America but refuse to give their name
- People who think there’s no value in occasionally writing for free in today’s market
- Response-less pitch letters
- Response-less job applications
- Writing cover letters
- All that paper I wasted sending out dozens and dozens of clip packets when applying for newspaper jobs (largely response-less)
- People who only get their news from the teevee
- Pens that go dead mid-interview
- Breaking news that always happens on a particularly brutal hungover Friday morning
- Constant hand-wringing over the future of the industry
- Readers who don’t give you a head’s up about (easily fixable) typos online
- Anyone who can’t see how you could be endlessly curious about the community, town, people and world you see every day.
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Inverted Soapbox 
I can’t open the content thrives link! Damn!
I never use both sides of the paper, and I am disappointed if I run out of pages and am forced to flip the pad over and start writing on the back of pages. It also makes your notebook fluffier and messier because the pages are more battered and bent.
What makes you think that journalists are only hungover on Friday mornings? I find Monday morning hangovers more likely to end (and begin, for that matter) in breaking news.
It’s true: hangovers are not limited to Fridays; though I found most of my hangover/breaking news collisions always took place late Friday afternoon
Cribbs, why do you hate the trees so much?
I also don’t like to use both sides of notebooks. It’s hard enough to keep track of who said what and when already.