I get asked two questions several times a week, and I brush off both with a verbal swat.
One — because I’m in my late 20s, I suppose – is when are you getting married? And the other, because it seems like small talk, is why did you leave the newspaper?
I could answer both with a single word: Money.
But I usually deflect the marriage subject, wrongly justifying it as an acceptable passing question, with a practical reason: I’m not eager to have children. And I answer the news question with something to which my audience can nod along: “It didn’t seem like a sustainable career path.”
But that’s a cold and detached answer. I don’t feel cold and detached about news, and I only give that response under the assumption that people don’t want to hang around for the full story – ironically, the same reason newspapers aren’t really working anymore.
So here goes. This is the real reason why I left news: I finally came to accept that the vanity of a byline was keeping me in a job that left me physically and emotionally exhausted, yet supremely unsatisfied.
I started working at newspapers in 2005, the tail-end of the good days. During my first year of work, a Florida newspaper flew me down to the Mexican border to write about cocaine cartel murders back at home. We booked the first available flight, disregarding expense, and arrived before the investigators. That would not happen at a daily newspaper today.
I don’t think the Internet killed newspapers. Newspapers killed newspapers.
People like to say that print media didn’t adapt to online demand, but that’s only part of it. The corporate folks who manage newspapers tried to comply with the whims of a thankless audience with a microscopic attention span. And newspaper staffers tried to comply with the demands of a thankless establishment that often didn’t even read their work. Everyone lost.
People came to demand CNN’s 24-hour news format from every news outlet, including local newspapers. And the news outlets nodded their heads in response, scrambling into action without offering anything to the employees who were now expected to check their emails after hours and to stay connected with readers through social media in between stories.
There was never such a thing as an eight-hour workday at newspapers, but overtime became the stuff of legend. You knew better than to demand fair compensation. If any agency that a newspaper covered had refused to pay employees for their time, the front-page headlines wouldn’t cease. But when it came to watching out for themselves, the watchdogs kept their heads down.
A little more than a month after I left the newspaper, I went to Key West for a friend’s wedding. I realized on the drive home that I had never taken a vacation – aside from a few international trips – without some editor calling with a question about a story. I remember walking down Fifth Avenue in New York on my birthday a few years ago, my cell phone clutched to my ear and mascara running down my face, as an editor told me that he thought the way I had characterized a little girl with cancer needed to be sadder.
To many people, and even to me, part of the draw of news is that it never stops. You wholly invest yourself in a story – until something bigger happens. The only guarantee in any workday is the adrenaline rush. And even when the story isn’t terribly thrilling, you’ve still got a deadline to contend with, a finite amount of time to turn whatever mess you’ve got into 12 to 15 column inches that strangers would want to read.
The flip side to the excitement is the burnout. You’re exhausted, and you’re never really “off.” You get called out of a sound sleep to drive out to a crime scene and try to talk with surviving relatives. You wake up at 3 a.m. in a cold sweat, realizing you’ve misspelled a city councilman’s name. You spend nights and weekends chipping away at the enterprise stories that you never have time to write on the clock.
Everyone works so hard for so long and for such little compensation. The results are dangerous.
We saw it with the Supreme Court health care ruling, as our national news leaders reported the decision incorrectly. We saw it with the Newtown massacre, when initial reports named the suspect’s brother as the shooter. Major news outlets are no better than bloggers if they adopt a policy of getting it out first and correcting it later. They don’t have the money to fend off the resulting lawsuits, and they don’t have the circulation numbers to allow people to lose faith in their product.
Newspapers always have been liberal places where people work hard for little pay, because they believe in the job. They always could empathize with the poor. But pay continues to dwindle to the point that I wonder what kind of person, today, enrolls in journalism school?
I took a pay cut when I moved back from Florida to Charleston, expecting to make up the difference quickly. Instead, I quit my newspaper job at 28, making less money than earned when I was 22.
I can’t imagine anyone outside of an affluent family pursuing a career with so little room for financial growth. And I wonder: Would that well-to-do reporter shake hands with the homeless person she interviews? Would she walk into a ghetto and knock on a door to speak with the mother of a shooting victim? Or would she just post some really profound tweets with fantastic hash tags?
Maybe that’s what people – editors and readers – put at a premium now. Maybe a newsroom full of fresh-from-the-dorm reporters who stay at their desks, rehashing press releases and working on Storify instead of actual stories, is what will keep newspapers relevant.
But I doubt it.
The day I announced my resignation, I had to cover the alcohol ban on Folly Beach. The photographer working the story with me said very little about my decision, except for one heartbreaking statement: “But you were made to do this.”
I had thought so, too. For so long, people had asked me what I would do if my name wound up on a future round of layoffs, if my paycheck were furloughed into oblivion.
I had spent countless hours late at night trolling online for something else that appealed to me. But covering news was the only thing I ever had wanted to do and the only thing I ever had imagined doing.
I started writing stories for my local newspaper when I was 16. I worked seven internships in college, eager to graduate and get into a newsroom. I left school early, school that was already paid for with enough scholarship money that I took home a check each semester, so that I could lug my 21-year-old life to West Palm Beach and work the Christmas crime shift alone in a bureau. And I wouldn’t change that decision for anything.
People in news like to describe a colleague’s departure, especially into a public relations or marketing job, as “going to the dark side.” When word of my resignation traveled through the newsroom, I heard “dark side” references over and over, always with a smile and a wink. I couldn’t help but resent them. But I looked over my cubicle each time and flashed my best Miss America grin instead of the middle finger poised over my keyboard.
I now write for the fundraising arm of a public hospital. Anyone who thinks that’s going to the dark side is delusional. And as my former coworkers ate farewell cake on my last day at the paper, a few of them whispered, “Do they have any other openings over there?”
I don’t know a single person who works in daily news today who doesn’t have her eyes trained on the exit signs. I’m not sure what that says about the industry, but I certainly don’t miss the insecurity.
Sure, it took me a while to get used to my new job. When I go to parties, I no longer can introduce myself as a reporter and watch people’s eyes light up. Instead, I hear how people miss seeing my byline. No one misses it more than I.
News was never this gray, aging entity to me. It was more like young love, that reckless attraction that consumes you entirely, until one day – suddenly — you snap out of feeling enamored and realize you’ve got to detach. I left news, not because I didn’t love it enough, but because I loved it too much – and I knew it was going to ruin me.
Sticky Valentines 
Nicely written. The interesting thing to me is that, having left newspapers back in ’96, I still get asked, “Do you miss it?” And the answer remains — sometimes I do… But for all the reasons you mentioned, and a few others, I don’t miss it. Through my PR firm I still get to work with reporters and editors, so for this lifetime, that may have to suffice…
Allyson, great piece. I’m in the exact same boat as you: made the transition from journalism to government communications. This part in particular hits very close to home: “When I go to parties, I no longer can introduce myself as a reporter and watch people’s eyes light up.” I find that I really miss the prestige of working for a media institution. But as you point out above, that prestige comes with a harsh cost, in terms of diminished free time and all-around burnout. Good stuff, thanks for sharing.
Great deal of truth here. Been at it for 40 years. Still have hope, though. Can’t say why.
Nice read!
Hi Allyson, Great article. I am a technical writer who would rather be a journalist, but after some forays into free-lancing community news, I know it can never be more than a hobby. I support your decision because you have a right to survive, but I’m very sorry that you had to make it. What is to be done?
Best Wishes,
Barbara Clemmer
Respect.
This stranger applauds you. I gave newspapers 40 years, loved each one except the last four, remain addicted to the rush, miss the people — and have learned there’s a wonderful world that doesn’t require my byline. Thanks for capturing the culture. “Newspapers killed newspapers.” Sigh. True.
Terrific post. I was let go almost a year ago from my job as a copy editor — it was the first and only job I’d had since I left J-school. I’d been there 14 years and felt bitter, angry and disappointed at what my job, and my paper, had become.
I wasn’t sad to go — in fact, I was relieved. A former co-worker said her mom told her after she left the paper, “You’re a nicer person now.” I think I am, too. It’s a helluva lot easier to be happy when you’re not under constant pressure to pull in readers with nothing but a bunch of wire stories and apparently some pixie dust (not supplied by the company).
As always, great work. Miss you here.
As always, great stuff. Miss you here.
Newspapers are NOT dead! I’m not defending any newspaper, I’m just saying that this lie about newspapers dying is a complete lie being spread by those who wish them dead. It’s part of a social movement that seeks to remove all things previously known as America. The facts are clear. Newspapers are changing. They are riding the tide of our sociopolitical economic dynamic, like every other industry in America, and in the world. Look on any corner in basically any city in America(and the world) and you will see that newspaper boxes filled with newspapers are everywhere and are sold out everyday. Do not believe the lies. Look around people and decide for yourselves and don’t let the anti social revolution movement distort our reality.
Why I left news – Sticky Valentines | Pressed by Sol Chrom
I don’t want to know why you left newspapering. I want to now how you did it.
I don’t want to know why you left newspapering. I want to know how you did it.
Thank you for writing and posting this.
“It was a great job except for the money, the hours, the stress and the working conditions.” That’s my reply to anyone asking why I left TV news.
It was a great job. I have fantastic memories as a photographer. Working sidelines and behind the scenes of our local NFL franchise. Meeting important people grappling with important issues. Framing the diving A-10 Warthog to show it and the target it’s firing on. The adrenaline from even the most mundane live remote. MacGyvering a broken video camera in a field with my Swiss Army Knife. I miss those things. But I traded them to start, shelter and feed our family. Hard choice but the right choice.
I really sympathize. As a journalist, I often wonder how I am going to report about people, places and things when those people, places and things are reporting on themselves via Facebook/Twitter etc.
There is a ray of hope, though. It’s the only time in about 100 years, that a single person can go it alone with their own outlet. It’s twice as much work, but you keep all the money and report how you like. Have you considered setting up a local news site and chasing down important metro stories? Your locals will end up loving you for it, and you’ll do just as much work as at the newspaper, but you get the added bonus of having to do ad sales and page design as well… fun fun fun. But hey, it’s a viable option, and you can actually make about the same or more as that newspaper job without having to report to an editor.
Good luck. I agree, though: all us journalists are doomed. And yet, Nancy Grace still has a job….
This defintely resonates. Thanks so much for sharing! As a former print reporter who left journalism 19 months ago for “the dark side” after almost a decade in news, I hear you. And I’m the better for it.
You explain it beautifully. I did it for 20 years. I don’t know anyone who quit newspapers who regretted it.
Allyson, great piece. I’m in the exact same boat as you: made the transition from journalism to government communications. This part in particular hits very close to home: “When I go to parties, I no longer can introduce myself as a reporter and watch people’s eyes light up.” I find that I really miss the prestige of working for a media institution. But as you point out above, that prestige comes with a harsh cost, in terms of diminished free time and all-around burnout. Good stuff, thanks for sharing.
The way I figure, news and reporting headed south with Woodward & Bernstein. For the first time, it became necessary for the reporter to insert themselves to be part of the story.
Today, it seems there is more interest in who is delivering our news rather than the news itself — a concession the outlet (whether electronic or print) is going to spin the news (and what is deemed “newsworthy”) one way or another. Perhaps this is politically motivated but, more than likely, it’s to grab a percentage of a market share for obvious financial reasons.
So, we can blame the corporations (compensation) or we can blame the lawyers (lawsuits). But the real blame should be with ourselves. We’ve accepted less from our media outlets and, by golly, they’re delivering!
Thank you, Allyson. Your passion will be great in the nonprofit sector. Maybe there’s a way to slip a fun feature in once in a while, just to retain the fun of talking with people about their lives.
Great one, Allyson. I’m a journalist too, so i found myself nodding throughout the post, agreeing with everything. I’m under the impression that many journalists, although they’re burned out and looking to leave, also think, “what else could I do with my skill set that could be more meaningful than news?” I’ve struggled with this question for a long time, but I now know that with this skill set I could do many other things that could be just as meaningful – if not more. Good luck in your new career!
Incisive piece; sharply honest and accurate.
This says it all. I too, although much older at the time (40), began working at newspapers in 2005. It took me longer to realize what I was meant to do. And I did everything you described as the job that needed to be done, minus following drug cartels in Mexico.
And you’re right. The world needs the watchdog that is the newspaper industry, but people have taken to getting their fill from broadcast tidbits, Internet sites and other not so reliable entitites. It is a shame that news has become nothing more than infotainment for many people who accept mediocrity as a given. Then blame the media for being liberal and blah, blah, blah.
I could go on and on about corporate takeovers of the news but I will not. Suffice it say you speak for many former journalists who could just not take it anymore.
Thank you for that.
A veteran print journalist..
God, I can empathize with ever word of this. And it makes me so depressed.
Very accurate and well said. Also a very complicated issue, that I could spend days discussing. I left the newspaper biz and make more than double what I ever made. But I miss being a reporter, miss the newsroom … and thankfully, I run an independent web site (essentially for no money) where I get to do actual reporting, so it feeds the well, so to speak. But that’s all a (serious) side job.
I’m not one that laments “the good old days,” but it’s pretty clear that, unfortunately, we have a barely semi-literate population who doesn’t care enough about good reporting to know what it’s missing by the deterioration of newsrooms. Newspapers are half the size, with half the staff (if they exist at all) of what they used to be. But good reporting is still necessary, not what Twitter/Facebook have to offer – though they have their place. I’ll always believe that.
This was such a great read, I have not reached my limit yet but I’m close and I know many of my colleagues have reached theirs, it is such a frustrating career path, sometimes I wonder how come people do it for decades. Thanks for sharing this.
Great post – it’s exactly the struggle I face every day. I love what I do but it become more insane every day. We’re given countless more duties than our counterparts were so many years ago, but still expected to work off the clock and as you put it, never really get a real day off. I’ve seen many colleagues go to “the dark side” and are much happier for it. I had aims of working my way up to one of the larger dailies, but quickly re-assessed that, and am looking for another path. Thanks for the inspiration, and for laying out the plight of a modern-day journalist so well.
News will never be monetizable enough to support news “careers” – every journalist has to make the risk assessment Allyson made and that I made two years ago after putting 20 years into the industry. Will there be room for career journalists at newspapers in 10 years? I don’t believe so. Your opinions may differ. But the career path we thought existed in journalism school is gone and the industry will only support “piece work” content providers at minimum salary with no career prospects and then a tiny circle of people doing increasingly less long-form journalism, and those “halo” jobs are already taken. The good news is that few can write in corporate America and the communications skill set is quite valued out there if you can find a way out – I wish Allyson and all my fellow ex-reporters the best as we find new careers that newspapers will never offer again.
Before I make my two comments, I just want to express the extent to which I enjoyed reading this. I wish I could stand any of the RSS readers currently available so I could subscribe to this blog.
Now, to my two short remarks:
“I can’t imagine anyone outside of an affluent family pursuing a career with so little room for financial growth.”
As someone who meets the criteria in your first sentence and is currently head news anchor in my country’s most popular media outlet (radio), I agree. I don’t know if I’d have the patience to climb this far if I wasn’t financially padded (and I’m only 23, so I arguably had more time and reasons to give it “another year”).
But:
“And I wonder: Would that well-to-do reporter shake hands with the homeless person she interviews? Would she walk into a ghetto and knock on a door to speak with the mother of a shooting victim? Or would she just post some really profound tweets with fantastic hash tags?”
I’m sorry, but this is, at best, a classic case of ad homenim. And I’m giving you credit here.
Keep up the great job,
S.K.
Holy crap, I feel like *I* could have written this. I spent several years in journalism, and ended up leaving my position (as editor of an alt-weekly that was an arm of the local daily) for being a traveling musician for a while.
Little-known fact: being a traveling musician in a C-list country band has better hours, more pay and more chances for advancement, coupled with much the same alcohol-fueled interpersonal dramatic pyrotechnics.
It didn’t have a byline, though. And being the anonymous classically-trained, dammit-I-have-a-degree-in-music-composition piano player staring at the name on the marquee’s ass every night wore thin more quickly than I would’ve thought.
So now I own a video production company, and have truly gone over to the dark side. It’s TV. And mostly commercials. The horror. Fairly well compensated and creatively fulfilling horror, at that.
But yeah, I still miss it. There aren’t any bylines on commercials. And sometimes I have the urge to do more for my community than to sell them stuff.
Allyson,
You are a wonderful writer. It’s a shame that you feel that way about news.
While I’m only a 3rd year journalism student, with minimal experience, I feel like the news industry needs people of your passion and I’m certain that your departure is probably not without loss to the journalism community.
That being said, I just can’t believe that reporting is bad as you imply. I truly think that the rewards of telling a story that needs to be told (regardless of the ears it falls on) melt away the dissatisfaction of editors saying that a cancer girl’s characterization “needed to be sadder.”
Maybe I feel this way because I’m still an idealistic rookie who thinks he’s gonna be a Pulitzer contender one day, but I just don’t think “newspapers killed newspapers.” And I still think there’s a great deal of quality journalism out there.
After the whole “Nate Thayer ordeal” I wrote this… http://reportschick.com/2013/03/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-student-journalist/
Basically, I’m just weary of the negativity surrounding the field that I’ve chosen. In it, I quote a friend who describes writing as hard, thankless work with a bad paycheck. But he also says that those in the field can’t imagine doing anything else.
“In short, we’re all dealing with some sort of seriously co-dependent, love-hate feelings in this field.”
We were all third-year J students at one point, David, and we once felt the same way. I love storytelling and always will. But after just a few years of reporting at my “dream newspaper,” my personal life was decimated, I realized my editor was inept and insane, my work week was 80 hours long because the newspaper job alone didn’t pay the bills, and my emotions constantly spun out of control.
I do believe a very small percentage of passionate journalism students are stubborn enough to ignore the side effects and keep on truckin’. I also believe these are the same insane masochists who are addicted to toxic romantic relationships.
I now work at a classical radio station and couldn’t be happier here. My coworkers remember my name, value my work and actually have time to talk to me.
David, your idealism is refreshing and critical to journalism’s survival. Feed it, love it, nurture it for as long as you can before family and other life concerns intervene.
Been there, thought that, five years later i know better.
I made this choice 20 years ago when I decided to go into tech journalism instead of working for a newspaper. It’s a decision that’s done very well for me and my family but everything you wrote resonates. Sometimes I look at people covering the poor or wars and remember what I lost in that decision but overall I’m very grateful that I did make that decision two decades ago.
One thing, though, now you’ll have the resources to spend nights and weekends doing what you are passionate about. So, maybe we don’t need to give up everything either. Thanks to social media we can build audiences of people who care about the world and our place in it. That’s one of the biggest things that’s happened in my life. No longer do I need to work for a corporation to get my voice heard. That’s totally freeing.
Hi, I used to write for magazines, then joined the non-profit sector, so, would just to like give a word of advice: doing communications in the NP sector may seem to achieve social good but it is not satisfying for people born to be creators. Doing communications is nothing more than just being a mouthpiece for the people doing the actual work – ie. the researchers, the doctors etc. I wish I’d detected this at the end of my first year rather than continuing with it for five years. Good luck!
Wonderfully done and loaded with truth. I spent 23 years as a dedicated reporter only to be axed in Alabama’s journalistic apocalypse. I miss seeking truth and speaking that truth to power almost every day. But mostly, I enjoy hanging up on telemarketers who beg me to subscribe to the paper that kicked me to the curb. I never had a vacation without interruption either, and rarely even a day off without one or more calls. I remember answering my phone at the Oklahoma City Memorial during a cross-country trip. It was my editor calling for help because a key interviewee refused to speak with anyone but me. I did the interview by phone sitting at the memorial, then dictated the story to a fellow reporter. All off the clock. I can look back and be proud of the body of work I produced. Looking back, I helped make my corner of the world a better place. That was worth the stress. I hope.
I work in tv news and have been struggling with the exact same feelings. Thank you for having the courage to share.
I believe story tellers will always be able to touch people and create change in the world, but the industry is in dire need of an overhaul. I truly hope a better answer is found before it’s too late.
I’m a not a professional in that field. But one thing I appreciated by reading this post is that a younger person is demonstrating that choosing to be free is possible. Please Allyson, keep free.
Greets from an italian sysadmin 🙂
Gianluca Riccardi
Allison, such a thoughtful, sensitive, insightful narrative, particularly for those of us who haven’t walked in a reporter’s footsteps. I completely disagree with the commenter “Jon.” You don’t sound bitter. HE sounds defensive and unnecessarily antagonistic. I have little patience for people who feel the need to publicly dump on someone else’s self-expression. Thanks for opening yourself up and sharing your story. I, for one, value it.
Wow. Former reporter and copy editor here. This struck a chord with me in a huge way. I left the industry in 2008 after working at a paper for 11 years and still earning less than $30,000 a year.
I began feeling resentful, thinking that the industry was only interested in recent college graduates, mostly single with no kids, who could survive easier on the paltry sum they paid. At 38 and with two young children, I began, as you said, keeping my eyes on the exit door.
The year I left, there were no raises. The year after, my former co-workers had to take a pay cut. Meanwhile, Pinch Sulzberger received a multimillion-dollar bonus.
I have great memories of the friends (and enemies) I’ve made as a reporter and of the impact some of my stories have had. But I agree wholeheartedly with what you said. The Internet didn’t kill newspapers. Newspapers killed newspapers.
Reblogged this on Jamaican Journal and commented:
Candid, honest take on why a reporter left her first love, the news business. Very close to home for me.
This is very well-written and heartfelt, and it sounds like you made a great decision. It’s great to hear about someone making her living as a writer, doing important work, and enjoying it.
I do think, though, that your vision is a bit limited. You seem to be conflating “news” or the news business or journalism with newspapers. Newspapers are an outmoded form of industrial production, is all. They’ve lost their main reason for existing, which was scarcity of information, and are being replaced by other forms of production. Just to be clear, I’m not talking about “the news” here. I’m talking about a hunk of paper. That’s the difference I think you’re post ignores.
This transition is horrendously messy, of course. As Clay Shirky has pointed out, revolutions tear down faster than they build up. “The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place.” (I recommend this landmark blog post, and then further exploring his work: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/)
But when you write, “But pay continues to dwindle to the point that I wonder what kind of person, today, enrolls in journalism school?” it’s a little like a person in 1500 writing, “But pay for scribes continues to dwindle to the point that I wonder what kind of person, today, goes into the book business.” The kind of person who enrolls in journalism school is the kind of person who’s excited about, or at least interested in, being a part of a communications revolution, one that’s probably still in its early days, and one in which the possibilities are—and I’m actually going to use this word correctly for a change—*literally* limitless.
You also write, “The corporate folks who manage newspapers tried to comply with the whims of a thankless audience with a microscopic attention span.” This too, I believe, reflects a limited point of view. You write that you came into newspapers in 2005. The game was long-since over by then. Newspapers had lost. In fact, they had lost before they even started playing, around the turn of the century, which was about a half-dozen years too late. I was in newspapers before the web came along (1994, for purposes of conversations like this one), and for a few years after. I watched as the industry demonized the Internet and marginalized anyone on their staffs who dared to think that this Internet thing might be a transformative, massive change in the industry. I got out at the first good opportunity, in early 1996, and have been working for online-only business ever since. Here’s my “Why I left newspapers” story http://www.kingkaufman.com/2009/05/02/newspapers-fatal-error/, which talks a lot about what it was like in the mid-’90s.
Sorry to ramble on. One more quote from you: “Everyone lost.”
No they didn’t. Not news consumers. As Matt Yglesias wrote just yesterday at Slate, “the American news consumer has never had it so good.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/03/pew_s_state_of_the_media_ignore_the_doomsaying_american_journalism_has_never.html
Thanks for listening.
king
First time here, the headline got my attention. I am 28, currently working at a newspaper and I must say I feel your pain. I feel like I am getting older and not accomplishing much here and am ready for a change. The newspaper industry has taught me much but I don’t feel I have learned enough to land a job anywhere else. Some people take the phrase “Jack of all trades” as a compliment, I tend to take it as an insult. I’m glad to hear you found a way out. Cheers!
Great post. You did what you felt you needed to do – for yourself. I worked as a newspaper reporter for nearly 15 years. Most of that time, I needed to have at least a second and sometimes a third job. That time when the vanity of my byline was the feeling of doing public good was eventually overtaken by the desire to do more/be more.
Good luck on your new field.
As someone who spent two decades in the newspaper industry and is now a PR director, I can relate to a lot. But your reasons for the death of newspapers misses the real point. And the answer ironically is money. The Internet did kill newspapers because Classified advertising went away and it isn’t coming back. Would you look for a car in a newspaper? A job? A home? All of that was the bedrock of the newspaper industry. All of that is gone.
While I’m sure some are tired of getting snippets of news that has been so thoroughly underreported, the truth is that even in the salad days of newspapers, a full 80 percent of newspaper readers didn’t read the jumps. So that 20-inch investigative masterpiece you just produced really wasn’t getting much readership even in the good ol’ days.
An old journalism maxim that is a true is the day is long is follow the dollar. If you really want to know why newspapers are headed for history’s dustbin, just follow the dollar.
Allyson,
You managed to sum up exactly the experience I had in my last few years of a 22-year career in TV news. My last stop was at an NBC-owned station here in Columbus, Ohio, at which my own “last sign of the apocalypse” came when I heard the newly-installed General Manager refer to the newsroom as a “profit center.” I was gone within a year and haven’t look back in the 13 years I’ve spent as a “recovering journalist.”
What I saw happen in TV news is happening now to my friends in the print media. The Cleveland Plain Dealer is currently readying the layoff of a large chunk of it’s staff and go to a three-day-a-week publication. Developments like this make me worry for the profession of journalism, because as more people leave (as you and I did) out of frustration & burnout…. or because they are laid off… who is going to be left to serve as watchdogs over those in public and private who do the dirty deeds and hurt those who can ill-afford to be hurt?
After 25 years in the business (I started when I was 16 as well), I left in 2002. Wish I had written what this smart young woman wrote.
I feel for you. I, too, left the newspaper, but in 1990 and I, too, felt like I left in the last of the good days. (Maybe it’s the journalist’s nature to think that it all goes to hell when we leave.) But as for your musing as to why anyone would major in journalism today, you should talk to some students at the top J schools. My son is one of them and he is thrilled to enter the field at a turning point. He won’t be working “at the newspaper” like we did. So maybe his career won’t hold all those same pitfalls.
Very well put. I’ve gone to freelancing and pursing academics after 16 years as a reporter in Florida and elsewhere. I don’t miss it, except for the interesting people I met in the business.
Alllyson, I read your well-written piece. But I think you missed the real reasons for why the news business in the United States is failing and why newspapers are only part of the problem. The Internet and World Wide Web are not the culprits. The culprits, and I’ve written about this before, are:
• The corporatist takeover of the multinational business community. The large companies that have taken over a variety of firms that are multinational conglomerates have no allegiance to any country, including the one in which they are based, or their stockholders. Their job now is to protect their own interests and profits. The consequences of this takeover has far-reaching implications.
• The corporatist takeover of the multinational corporations extends to the companies that own most of the big media. The boards of these companies, many of them interlocking directorates with other media and a distribution channel firms, are loyal only to themselves in the top executives on those boards on which they serve. The result is that big business speaks with one voice and big media speaks with one voice, that message being that government regulation is bad, the rich are driving the economy to the benefit of the middle and working class (which is clearly a lie) and that the problem with poverty are lazy, drug-addled welfare hangers on.
How do I explain Rush Limbaugh’s successful attack on the mainstream media? There are outliers in any group and some of the mainstream media, even though part of large corporations, continued to act in the proper role of the Fourth Estate. By not marching to the same tune as the other corporatist entities, Limbaugh (and Fox News and the other right-wingers) were tasked with eviscerating those that would stand against the corporatist agenda.
• The consequent death of the Fourth Estate. The two bullet points above are contributing to the death of the Fourth Estate in several ways. Not only is news now slanted in such a way as to create a narrative that furthers the corporatist agenda, but it also panders to the basest of instincts. This is a long time coming, but it is now in full flower in the 21st century. The cult of celebrity is further by the corporatist-owned media because it appeals to the most titillating parts of our nature and creates the illusion that wealth is still possible if only one has talent. Of course, that isn’t true, but the narrative serves the corporatist and rich elites’ purpose.
• The dumbing down of America. Jonathan Kozol some three decades ago predicted this would happen. Because the corporatists have taken over the educational system at almost all levels leading up to college, and because they continue to attack what may be the last bastion of intellectual honesty in the United States, the majority of Americans have lost the ability to think critically or analytically. They accept what pabulum is fed to them from the big media. They accept that what a celebrity does is news. They accept that sports is news and an important part of our society without recognizing that it, too, has become corporatized down to childhood. They reject that public policy and politics are important topics because they don’t believe it affects them or their desire to become rock stars. In short, the United States is now falling asleep only to be entertained by bread and circuses.
This lack of critical thinking has opened the door for the TeaParty, which wants to aid and abet the destruction of government and government regulation without having the slightest critical or analytical thought of the implications. Politicians such as Rick Perry, Greg Abbott, Ted Cruz and other Texans as well as Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul and John Boehner reflect the result of an uninformed electorate.
A related part of this dumbing down is the drugging of America. For all the talk about the “War on Drugs,” it serves the corporatist interests on both the supply and demand side of the equation to see more people addicted to drugs, either legal or illegal. It is this way that the audience is made somnolent and unaware of the real world crumbling around them.
• The corporatist takeover of our government. None of the points that I’ve articulated above would have happened or been successful had government also not fallen into the hands of the corporatist leadership. There is no question that, with few exceptions, elected officials are bought and paid for by corporate interests. The further up the electoral food chain, the more likely this is to be the case, but the rampant corruption in some cities makes it clear how far has become the corporatist reach. There is no room for outrage in the media because it serves none of the media leadership’s purposes to have the corruption pointed out. We see a groundswell against this trend, but we may be too far gone to reverse it. The result? The checks and balances of a free and open democracy are being eroded to the point of almost nonexistence.
The carcinogenic effect of the corporatist takeover of our government goes far beyond elected officials. It extends deeply into the judiciary. The Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United provides no clearer evidence of this than any other judicial ruling in the last decade.
It is incorrect to blame the Internet and World Wide Web or the newspapers themselves for the destruction of newspapers and the weakening of the Fourth Estate. The Web and the Internet are merely channels for the distribution of information. If the information being distributed panders to the corporatist agenda instead of providing critical information, it matters not how the information is distributed. Were it the journalists making the real news judgments and publishing decisions, do you doubt this would be different? What matters is the capitalist model is failing the people and the people are being deluded into thinking quite the opposite.
When and how to reverse these trends is probably going to be the major issue of the next decade and the lessons of history are not uplifting this far down the road. Restrictions on campaign contributions, term limits, the definition of corporations, the corporate model for news distribution, enhancing the education of our children so they are critical thinkers thereby piercing the veil of propaganda — these are all part of the formula that may permit us to peacefully reclaim our society.
Why Allyson left the news is a very personal story. And for her, a very real story. But at a much higher level, the situation is far darker and more sinister.
George Schwarz, owner
The Amarillo Independent
http://www.amarilloindy.com
What a great post! I can relate to you throughout your whole story. I started in 2006 and the whole time I felt like I was chasing a dream that was no longer available to me.
I am now self-employed and loving every minute of it. Congratulations on your decision and new found happiness away from the news!