For Whom The Bell Tolls

I'm sorry. I don't even remember firing you.

 

Well played, sir, well played

 

After he does away with the designated hitter and youth sports parents.

 

Holy shit, we have a winner!!!!!!

 

Unless a 22-year-old and a 35-year-old are both up for an editor position, it's better to be 22. That's true almost no matter what the job.

These days, it probably wouldn't matter that much if you have more experience and are more qualified, because, in general, journalistic and performance standards are changing. And not for the better.

Companies also are getting younger, anyway, not only for the always bitterly cited cost/salary reasons, but also because the 20-somethings are the ones most comfortable and fluent with the current tech-driven equipment and jobs. And, last but perhaps most importantly, there is the very real reality that the middle-aged class of journalists are the ones being driven out of the industry, and they're the ones to whom it has happened most against their will.

I've said before that the 35-55 group is the one that's really struggling right now, either with learning and keeping up with all the changes themselves, or else, with their emotions/reactions and their decisions/responses to it all.

In short, there is much soul-searching going on, on a wide-scale basis. This is all just the reality of the situation.

And Italian_Stallion, you and your freelance gigs may wind up being more secure, in the end, than the staffers at some places. I think a lot of shops may eventually turn more and more to freelancers.

Why not?

In terms of overall costs, they're much cheaper, and frankly, with all the recently unemployed staffers there are getting to be, the quality of the stringer pool is potentially higher than it has ever been.

It used to be that something could be lost in the work as a result of the use of stringers instead of staff members. Now, that may not be the case at all.

The only problem is, most of us don't really want to be freelancers. We've always liked being part of a paper. It has been something we were proud of, something that was bigger than ourselves.

Now? We're more and more unsure. That much can be seen every day, right here on SJ.

 

Something I don't quite understand:

Employers allegedly hire younger people because they'll work cheaper, they'll connect to the younger audience and they'll be more adaptable to new technology and roles.

But what if no one knows how much you're willing to accept as your salary? Maybe the veteran is willing to work for the same pay as the kid. Would you still buy a Fiesta when you could have a Lincoln for the same price?

And what if a portion of the younger audience wants to know what's going on inside a situation and maybe even have some context for it with past seasons or other teams? When I was a teenage sports fan, I enjoyed reading what the long-time insiders knew was going on, not what some twentysomething who was more like me might have to say about it.

Thirdly, don't veteran folks offer skills and knowledge without that burning desire to climb a career ladder or to bleed an extra few bucks from the job? To me, they'd be more stable and content to do the grunt work that, by and large, no longer offers much chance for advancement anyway.

 

Joe,

You're right, of course, in all your questions. What's more, the answers to all of them, in many cases, would be yes.

But the powers that be go with the averages, the odds -- or, what they believe those to be, anyway.

There are exceptions, of course. But the odds are that younger workers will be, or will be willing to be, starting out for lower/cheaper. That's just logical and makes sense.

The odds also are that, the younger employees are, the less likely it is that they have risen as much in their careers yet, to the point where it isn't really that plausible to ask them to work for less than a certain amount -- especially, sometimes, much less money, than would seem fair or right, or comparable to other careers.

The odds are, too, that readers would relate better, and prefer, overall, the perspectives -- whatever they are -- of someone closer to their age/generation more those of someone who is not. That's why different music appeals to different ages, and once people's tastes/parameters are established, they usually don't change that much. It's the same concept/belief. Of course, that's where papers may be missing the mark, by actually alienating their now generally older, more mature audience. But that's another aspect of the problems we're having in this industry.

Certainly, there are middle-aged workers who provide great, often better, work, and who may be quite happy, or at least content, to keep right on doing it without necessarily needing to move up.

But the odds are, they will feel like they should be at a certain point, by a certain time, and the thinking goes that, if they're not, they are more likely to eventually become less happy, less productive, too comfortable, slow down, less sharp, less relatable, etc. In Whatever, it's all not good.

And, even if none of that does happen, they will still be getting older, and employers hate that, because that means they are more likely to need/use health insurance, more likely to be limited by family constraints, or else, more likely to be more mature, more likely to have their own mind, be less malleable, etc.

In other words, almost any way you look at it, older is not considered better, most of the time. It is considered more of a problem, and companies are more and more willing to give up a little experience and/or quality in order to avoid it.

It's what they think they should do.

They are wrong, of course, in the cases of many of us, maybe even most of us. But that doesn't matter. The industry is still suffering, and will continue to suffer, for it.

Much is being lost, and people are being mistreated. And none of it is doing any good, anyway.

And that's the worst thing about it all.

Sorry for the gloom-and-doom, bleak perspective, but that's how I see things at the moment. It's just a bad situation that no one seems to know for sure how to solve.

At this point, we're not even sure if it can be solved.

 

i don't understand the "war" mentality and the talk about being on the same "side."

there is no war. it's reality. it sucks.

you can't fight a layoff. you can't fight mass layoffs.

you can only be proactive and get yourself in position to succeed in another career.