APME respondant: Love it or leave it

An APME survey shows editors say they can't cover the news like they used to. No kidding.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i-hsJdMswlZkdecIaqE-frIK5OwQD985FNG02

The last graf caught my eye:

I'm sure this guy won't be laid off, since he's "the best." If he is though I'm sure he'd never consider applying for any jobs as a "PR flack"

 

I thought the people who pay journalists had that approach hard-wired into their consciousness ("Are you all lucky to continue doing this for a living? Hmmm?")

People on the front lines of this business put up with a lot of crap through the years, but we've passed the tipping point for many now. Pay, hours, no-outlet career paths, those constants remain ... compounded now by relentless and debilitating job insecurity, increasing workloads, pay givebacks, disdain and mocking from public, disregard by next generation. Oh, it's a great skidload of shit now.

Anyone who frames that in a "I still love this and you mustn't, if you leave" scenario is a royal douche and a loser.

 

On the other hand, we found a home for Ms. Lovely and Talented, if she'll stoop to working at such a small paper...

 

that's one of the things that irks me the most, when someone tells me how grateful I should be to still have a job, even though my pay has been cut and my insurance rates have gone up, etc. ... Listen, if you think as a company CEO or manager that you have to do these cost-cutting measures to survive, fine. But don't patronize me with how grateful I should feel about getting crapped on ...

 

I cannot say this strongly enough: Fuck him.

I'm tired of that bullshit guilt trip. Absolutely tired of it. They pay you money. You perform a service. They aren't cutting charity checks. Also, it's not a poor reflection on someone's character to better their situation and, yes, that includes financially.

RickStain's signature perfectly encapsulates my previously enunciated thoughts on the topic.

 

Fuck Eric Petermann with Bea Arthur's dick.

 

No.

Fuck Bea Arthur with Eric Petermann's dick. Even worse.

 

I had some nasty things to say, but he's M.E. at an 11,500 circulation paper -- no offense to those who work at those in making my point, I worked at my share -- so Eric Petermann lecturing industry veterans up to and through places like the Washington Post, L.A. Times and New York Times about how lucky they are simply to have jobs in these terrible times is really pretty much just silly. He may, however, feel free to gut-check this ...

 

He's a crusading editor:

http://www.journalstandard.com/homepage/x407222107/Help-the-helpless-Let-s-save-this-cat-Freeport

 

End of thread. Well-played Frank.

 

The third reader comment summed up the whole situation well. The poster pointed out that the woman has a three-month old, not a three-year-old.

Mistakes happen to the best of us. But it looks like somebody should spend a little more time fact-checking and a little less time telling the rest of us that we're lucky to have a job.

 

I'm sure the "P.R. flacks" his reporters occasionally rely on for information just loved that line. Just fucking loved it. That guy can suck a bag of dicks.