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Monday, October 26, 2009

Media Who Wants to Be a Journalist?

Posted by Eli Sanders on Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 9:48 AM

Building on the responses from Jamie and Clarissa and others—and with today's word of "a mode of distribution going out of existence" in mind—a response from aspiring journalist Lianna:

You have to remember that although people have talked about newspapers failing for years, the actual occurrence is pretty recent. For four years I've been studying a craft I now have no opportunity to practice. I love journalism because it gives me the opportunity to tell important stories that inform and inspire the public. I graduated in May and I've had a tough time, but I'm still young enough to be idealistic and generally hopeful.

Comments (5) RSS

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Well, I suppose she could always place an ad in the phone book under "Escorts."

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on October 26, 2009 at 10:09 AM

If you stop recruiting new people into a profession, it stagnates. If young journalists know they might have to report as a second job, or for an as-yet unprofitable new media enterprise, then I don't see why they should be laughed at for trying. Plenty of people have a day job and continue to persevere, like the many artists who can't make a living from their art, but still create.

Posted by kj on October 26, 2009 at 11:24 AM

Let me just plug Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright Sided again.

Just consider: if you scroll up a bit you can read David Schmader mocking Scientology or Dan Savage mocking anti-R-71 demonstrators for believing kooky, nutty things about magic aliens and how Ozzie and Harriet was real.

But right here we have this magical delusion that thinking happy thoughts will cause etherial rays of cosmic success to shoot out of your skull and give you whatever you want in life, facts be damned. And that's normal. Anyone who doesn't believe in the ooga booga voodoo of keeping a positive attitude is a freak, or is mentally ill.

Go figure.

Posted by elenchos on October 26, 2009 at 11:30 AM

You know, Seattle Times print circulation is up.

Just sayin.

Score another one for the dog-killers.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on October 26, 2009 at 12:18 PM

I don't get it. How can she claim she has no opportunity to practice here craft? It's not that she has no opportunity to practice here craft. She has only a very small and extremely unlikely opportunity to practice her craft a certain set of employers, namely big, established mainline newspapers. Boo hoo. Private businesses that are losing money don't owe you anything.

There are other opportunities (the Stranger hires, for example. So do web publications that pay crap. There are lots of opportunitities in the new media space.

It seems to me that if she lacks the creativity to find one of these new jobs and the gumption to take it, then she wasn't going to be much of a reporter anyway.

Suck it up and prove me wrong.

Posted by aff on October 26, 2009 at 12:19 PM