This gentleman has character.

I congratulate the reporter who quit. To anybody who actually thinks this profession is noble anymore I have to LOL. Cmon. All the good/great writers and copy editors who have been laid off or forced into a buyout ... all the suck-up middle managers (is an ME a middle manager?) who follow all the dumb edicts of companies like Gannett ... to this kind of crap, and the pieces of crap we are putting out on the streets every day ... This.Profession.Is.Dead (but you already knew that). Kudos to this man for quitting in disgust. I commend you and respect you.

 

Maybe it's because I worked for a shady-as-fuck publisher in one of my early gigs... I just can't get too worked up over it.

 

I'm guessing the guy knows somewhat more about his current financial holdings and obligations than the rest of us,
so maybe he and his wife agreed that it would be OK to pull the plug as his newspaper company went full train wreck.

 

From his post:

"I have no idea how my wife and I will get by. We have two kids in college, two collies, a mortgage and dreams of travel and adventure that now look more distant than ever. But here’s what I know: I can’t teach young people how to be ethical, upstanding reporters while working for a man like Michael Schroeder."

 

He either has really big principled balls, or he has recently been left a large enough inheritance to have really big principled balls.

 

Maybe he shouldn't be teaching people to go into this business in the first place. The odds are they'll more likely be forced to eat Ramen than ever get a taste of prime rib. Unless daddy has a trust fund set up for them.

 

I don't see this as some courageous ethical stand The reporter (and everyone else at the Bristol Press) was working at a terrible newspaper for a terrible person for terrible pay. Using this occasion to quit indignantly was a good parting point.

 

I do know that when I go, I want to go indignantly.

 

Are there examples where journalists have burned bridges in a goodbye article/post and they have received decent offers instead of workless pats on the back from fellow journalists?

 

I'm still trying to understand how the guy who could write this:

One of the things we emphasize is that journalism is not just a career, it is a calling, that it requires those who join its ranks to stand up for what’s right even when it is difficult.

could still work at the same paper for four years after his wife quit.

I'm not even sure how you answer the calling by working for some shit paper, that doesn't produce real journalism. But, then you stay for four more years?

Give me a break.

Maybe he needed some time to figure out how to make a living after his wife quit, but did they do anything to make it possible for him to leave his job?

She apparently hasn't made any money since she left the paper, and he stayed on there.

I'm having a hard tome seeing this guy as a martyr.

 

If a fraction of the journalists who read this guy's story end up donating $10 to his non-profit, his courageous stand will prove to be a wise business decision.

 

What is his wife doing now for a paycheck? She obviously knew he was working for a morally bankrupt owner, and since they apparently share the same distaste for such shady dealings, I would assume she spent the last 4 years both chasing a better career and paycheck, and helping him look for an escape route. If she's been sitting home playing with the collies this whole time, that's a pretty shitty plan.