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Like a Shot to the Heart
From Brian Moritz at Scholars & Rogues:
I recommend you read the whole thing at the source, because I doubt there isn't a single ex-reporter out there who wouldn't agree in whole or in part with the whole post.
All I can say is that I pretty much wanted to say "THIS!" while reading post, because everything he wrote applies to me.
Only for me, I miss being a reporter at every election. Doesn't matter if it's a town election or the presidential election, I miss it as much as I would miss a amputated limb.
But things kept getting worse. The layoffs started, followed by the furloughs. Wondering every six months if you were still going to have a job was bad enough. Wondering every six months if you were still going to have a job while trying to figure out how to make ends meet when you lose a week of pay each quarter. Then the job cuts kept coming. The industry still hasn’t figured itself out.
More striking — it stopped being fun.
The newsrooms I worked in used to be fantastic, vital places. There was an energy to the room, especially when news was breaking. Being a reporter could be, above all else, fun.
That was long gone by 2009. The layoffs, the furloughs, the space cuts, all of it, sucked the life out of the room, out of the industry.
For this, I blame newspaper owners. By their actions, by their slavish devotion to print profit margins at any cost, by their desire to maximize profit while minimizing the quality of the product, by their inability or unwillingness to embrace digital news, they have sucked so much of the soul out of a business I love.
It’s telling that when anyone leaves the business, my first reaction (and that of almost everyone else I know) is “Good move. Smart decision.”
I recommend you read the whole thing at the source, because I doubt there isn't a single ex-reporter out there who wouldn't agree in whole or in part with the whole post.
All I can say is that I pretty much wanted to say "THIS!" while reading post, because everything he wrote applies to me.
Only for me, I miss being a reporter at every election. Doesn't matter if it's a town election or the presidential election, I miss it as much as I would miss a amputated limb.
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