What happens to journalists when they leave the business and become former journalists? Also, the time a New York Rangers executive told me blacks can't play hockey and 5 questions with Neal Boudette.
Do you ever sleep? I thought old-school writers were "economical" and didn't subscribe the Millennial, "just-keep-writing-until-you-stop-thinking-of-stuff" approach? Every post is like War and Peace. I kid you. (Sort of). One big reaction to your post: it's the same in every profession. I came to DC/Beltway in 1999 a newly-minted 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps, filled with idealism and energy and naive enough to think our leaders were working in the best interests of the collective good. I now have dreams of leaving a place where self-interest (read: lining own pockets) and bullshit are the real currency. (And trust me, it goes way deeper/wider than DT and both sides equal in blame). The point is: I see a much broader audience/message for your observations. Love your podcast, blogs etc. Thank you.
Ugh. journalism. You leave it--it doesn't leave you. It's pulled me back in when I swore I'd never write again. Nice to see you're also still bloviating, and possibly still a dick. We should write some stuff.
Fuck! Tim was just fantastic, a great guy and didn't deserve that kind of ending. I'm not a sports guy by any measure, but I knew Tim and worked near him at two different newspapers and he was the most respected sports reporter in both places. A real loss.
I left journalism in the mid 90's. Started my "dream job" out of college at CNN, producing financial news, but our work got bumped for months for live coverage of the OJ civil trial. Bust our butts all day and get moved aside to air celebrity trials was not what I dreamed of. Add in the low pay, unstable hours, etc. I decided to get out and start over in my mid 20's before life got away from me. (Had a mentor working overnights, missing little league games and other family milestones. I didn't want to be that guy.) Got an MBA and entered the corporate world, but kept journalism close. Now I focus on Market Research, or as I like to refer to myself, I'm a corporate journalist. Business hypothesis = story idea, Gather facts/ask questions through primary and secondary sources and then tell the story. So many ways for the recovering journalists to start over with the skills we attained.
As a former journalist, this definitely hit home. I spent years as a reporter — I covered everything from water district to forest fires, interviewed Michael Jordan and Harrison Ford, and everything in between. I thought I'd do it forever. Then, at one point, I saw that the Chicago Tribune AND the Chicago Sun-Times were in bankruptcy. It was a shocking realization, that maybe journalism wasn't really a viable career. And clearly I wasn't the only one — I remember reading an article where Phil Bronstein (the former editor of the SF Examiner/Chronicle) laid off a copyeditor. The woman was in her 50s, and she said, "What am I going to do now? I thought I'd do this for the rest of my life." (I'd love to find out what happened to her, but I can't find that online anywhere.)
So at a certain point, I decided to "cross over to the dark side" and go into copywriting. I didn't love it, but I made far more money than I'd ever made as a journalist. It was easier — I'd get asked "can you get us 300 words by Thursday?" I'd say, "Hmmmm, yeah, I think that's doable" — not telling them I could get them 300 words in an hour if they needed it.
But there were a lot of tradeoffs. I had to treat "brands" as if they were real, legitimate things. I sat in a meeting where we spent hours discussing how to get a vodka that was geared toward 20-something women connected with Oscar parties. We decided to do an all-out blitz of the phrase "Clink to that!" Inside, I died.
Now, I'm with a public affairs firm in Chicago. I get to do a lot of writing that I care about, and I'm very lucky to be here. But I miss the hell out of journalism, and I think we're all much poorer for its slow decline.
Do you ever sleep? I thought old-school writers were "economical" and didn't subscribe the Millennial, "just-keep-writing-until-you-stop-thinking-of-stuff" approach? Every post is like War and Peace. I kid you. (Sort of). One big reaction to your post: it's the same in every profession. I came to DC/Beltway in 1999 a newly-minted 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps, filled with idealism and energy and naive enough to think our leaders were working in the best interests of the collective good. I now have dreams of leaving a place where self-interest (read: lining own pockets) and bullshit are the real currency. (And trust me, it goes way deeper/wider than DT and both sides equal in blame). The point is: I see a much broader audience/message for your observations. Love your podcast, blogs etc. Thank you.
Ugh. journalism. You leave it--it doesn't leave you. It's pulled me back in when I swore I'd never write again. Nice to see you're also still bloviating, and possibly still a dick. We should write some stuff.
Fuck! Tim was just fantastic, a great guy and didn't deserve that kind of ending. I'm not a sports guy by any measure, but I knew Tim and worked near him at two different newspapers and he was the most respected sports reporter in both places. A real loss.
I left journalism in the mid 90's. Started my "dream job" out of college at CNN, producing financial news, but our work got bumped for months for live coverage of the OJ civil trial. Bust our butts all day and get moved aside to air celebrity trials was not what I dreamed of. Add in the low pay, unstable hours, etc. I decided to get out and start over in my mid 20's before life got away from me. (Had a mentor working overnights, missing little league games and other family milestones. I didn't want to be that guy.) Got an MBA and entered the corporate world, but kept journalism close. Now I focus on Market Research, or as I like to refer to myself, I'm a corporate journalist. Business hypothesis = story idea, Gather facts/ask questions through primary and secondary sources and then tell the story. So many ways for the recovering journalists to start over with the skills we attained.
As a former journalist, this definitely hit home. I spent years as a reporter — I covered everything from water district to forest fires, interviewed Michael Jordan and Harrison Ford, and everything in between. I thought I'd do it forever. Then, at one point, I saw that the Chicago Tribune AND the Chicago Sun-Times were in bankruptcy. It was a shocking realization, that maybe journalism wasn't really a viable career. And clearly I wasn't the only one — I remember reading an article where Phil Bronstein (the former editor of the SF Examiner/Chronicle) laid off a copyeditor. The woman was in her 50s, and she said, "What am I going to do now? I thought I'd do this for the rest of my life." (I'd love to find out what happened to her, but I can't find that online anywhere.)
So at a certain point, I decided to "cross over to the dark side" and go into copywriting. I didn't love it, but I made far more money than I'd ever made as a journalist. It was easier — I'd get asked "can you get us 300 words by Thursday?" I'd say, "Hmmmm, yeah, I think that's doable" — not telling them I could get them 300 words in an hour if they needed it.
But there were a lot of tradeoffs. I had to treat "brands" as if they were real, legitimate things. I sat in a meeting where we spent hours discussing how to get a vodka that was geared toward 20-something women connected with Oscar parties. We decided to do an all-out blitz of the phrase "Clink to that!" Inside, I died.
Now, I'm with a public affairs firm in Chicago. I get to do a lot of writing that I care about, and I'm very lucky to be here. But I miss the hell out of journalism, and I think we're all much poorer for its slow decline.