i don't care

i guess, for me, if journalism is only a job, i should look for something with more security and a much, much, much better retirement.

shit, if i can't bring myself to enjoy and embrace great writing any more, what am i still doing here? as dan "said," i enjoy more of what i read at this site than i do in any newspaper ... and that's a sad statement.

 

to me, tom, it starts up top.

when the decision-makers could care less about who can and can't do what well — only that someone does it and it gets done — it's hard to take pride in your work.

yeah, you might be busting ass to satisfy yourself, your readers, your sources or whoever the heck you want to write for, but if the bosses are just as willing to have someone with no qualifications take your spot and do a shitty job to save money, it strips your passion.

i still write and report like a madman, but when i go home or when i have days off, i completely shut off from work. no espn, no blogs, no google news, no e-mail. don't read the paper. don't hang out with people from work.

like others have said, it wasn't always that way, but fuck it. fuck capital letters. fuck caring most about something i can't save alone. i will give you the bylines you desire, then you give me the paycheck in turn.

 

I think I've said this before. There used to be a time when you could comb airports, train and bus stations and find newspapers. Not anymore.
Very depressing.

 

I think I have a pretty good idea of where you're coming from. After I poured my heart and soul into my now-former job for two and a half years, my reward for all that effort was especially dehumanizing treatment from the publisher and CEO as they all but pushed me out the door.

When a profession bleeds someone dry, then discards him or her for the next victim, it's hard to remain enthusiastic.

I still love the writing part. I loved much about the job, but in the end, it wasn't enough.

 

Oh, I don't think that's true. It's still very easy to take pride in your work -- for yourself. I can't look myself in the mirror if I don't put some pride in what I do, regardless of how my bosses or the readers may feel.

And they can't take that away unless you let them.

Yeah, it sucks to be beaten down over and over again. But if you're doing this for external validation, you're in the wrong line of work to begin with.

 

i don't view it as external. your own superiors? i guess it's not inside your own body, but it's as close as you can get.

how about if your paper took the buyout of a 10-year vet on the college beat and replaced him or her with an intern because, well, he graduated, he's been an intern for a year, he's paid his dues?

yeah, you still can do your job with some vigor pretty easily. but will it bother you as much to see a typo in a headline? a mistake in the tv schedule? how about when the former intern struggles on that other beat?

those things are harder to care about. and like tom said, reading other papers and getting jazzed about journalism in general is a lot tougher these days.

 

I hesitate to suggest this, because I know it's going to be roundly assailed. But I must.

I hear a lot of "when so-and-so happens, it's hard to remain enthusiastic for your job."

Folks, is it that, or is it that this provides an easier excuse not to remain enthusiastic because you'd really rather spend your time thinking about something else after having lived in journalism for a long time?

If you want to remain enthusiastic about your job, you know what? You just DO. If it's harder, you just TRY harder. Or don't, and I'm not going to judge you for it.

Just understand that you're providing yourself with a built-in reason not to give a shit.

 

Strunk, I'm not talking about pride in the paper. I'm talking about pride in your own work.

Yeah, it still gets to me when the section I put out has typos throughout. But I also don't lose sleep over it like I used to (unless I'm the one who made the fuckup.) The fact is, we're making quite a few more mistakes than we used to because our staff is about 75 percent of the size it was a month ago. What can I do about that? I bust my ass, I do the best I can and I go home. Still try to make sure I get it right, same as I did before.

I still take pride in my work; I just don't equate MY work with the entire newspaper anymore. It's a waste of energy.

 

Now, THAT I can get behind. Yeah, I agree there.

 

agreed. no excuses here. do what you can do to the best of your abilities.

the extra mile? no problem. but it's that extra second mile that fewer people are getting up for. it's not all laziness.

 

buck, i have to say i agree with strunk, not only because he doesn't use capital letters, but because he has a point.

i still take pride in my work because my name is at the top of the page. but, when your work becomes bastardized because of space, lack of staff or mandates, and when you wonder if you're going to have a job this time next month, and when you wonder if your fucking paper will even exist in two years, it's difficult to raise the journalism flag and salute.

i don't understand how you don't see it.

 

Ah, you changed the word "hard" to "difficult." Well, that's very different.