Column in Thursday's Birmingham News

Yeah, yeah, we're troopers, we're professionals, we grew up loving newspapers, we're passionate.

Save it.

You want professionals? Well, you have to pay for that. You want talent? Compete for it. You want dedication and loyalty? Reward it.

The only reason "professionals" are still working in journalism is that we've got at least two generations of them entrenched. This isn't sustainable. You get what you pay for.

All this idealistic bullshit floating around this industry right now is driving me nuts.

 

Yeah, kind of tacky for a well-paid columnist to write that we're all surviving this just fine.

And I agree, few of us got into journalism to get rich. But had someone told us back in college that we might not be able to support our familes in 5, 10 or 15 years, every last one of us would've chosen another profession.