Another 'Startling' Journalism Truth

It's about time someone wised up. Or mustered up the courage to tell kids the sad truth.
http://www.observer.com/2008/media/cruel-cruel-summer
I'm just surprised it was the NYO.

Playing With Speak N’ Spell As Child Not Qualification for Journalism Job

This afternoon, as I was reading Gawker, I came across an amazing tidbit of news. And by amazing, I mean horrifying in a funny, man-the-world-of-journalism-is-messed-up kind of way. Some jokers in nowheresville, Ill., decided to make their own county magazine because the mainstream media was just too biased and negative for their county’s tastes. Hence, Cook County Magazine was born. Well, more like a stillbirth. The magazine will never be distributed because there were too many misspellings and omissions.
The Chicago Sun Times reports this:
“I was asked to review it and decided not to distribute it -- not because of content, but errors and omissions in the article" about John Stroger [the man featured in the cover story], Stoger Spokesman Eugene Mullins said. "Judging on grammatical stuff -- something misspelled or that's not a complete sentence -- falls back on the president. And this is a Cook County magazine. I have to find a way to get rid of them. I'm not distributing them.”
Sorry, Cook County. If you want positive news, go read some press releases.You can view the full story here http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/1076365,CST-NWS-mag27.article.

Being dropped like a bad habit

After three and a half years in the industry, I'm going through my first layoff. And believe me, this is hard. The company provided a list of half-assed options for trying to stay employed, but the only real information they had was, 'you are being laid off.' As I try to save my job, my financial future, and my sanity, I'm realizing that what I'm fighting for might not even be worthwhile. I'm trying to hold onto a job that is a figment of my imagination. Journalism is dead. The dream I had of what journalism should and would be when I was in high school is no longer the reality of this profession. I dreamed I would write for Rolling Stone but in reality, I am not Kurt Cobain's daughter (did you hear she interns there? She is 15. Must be nice) so this will never happen. Even if I began writing features at the lowest local community paper and worked by way up the ranks for 10 horrifying years making less than 30k at most of those jobs, I would probably never be granted even an interview for a freelance post. The good jobs in journalism are few and far in between and the job security is even weaker. If you are reading this and you work at a newspaper follow this advice: Get out now!!!! But if you are reading this an you are an exec at a newspaper, I guess you are ok.

The Other Shoe Drops at WSJ

The Wall Street Journal just canned almost the entire South Brunswick office. The copy desk, pagination and monitor desks now cease to exist. But don’t worry. Everyone is encouraged to apply for the new news desk in New York. They plan to cut about 50 positions though, so some people are going to be out of a job.
From the official memo sent out to staffers:
“We will be posting the new editing desk jobs no later than Friday and genuinely encourage all staffers affected by this announcement to apply for these openings in New York. About 50 positions will be lost, but staffers with the highest skill levels and the enthusiasm to acquire new skills will have a distinct advantage during the selection process.”
Which really translates to if you sucked up enough to the right people then you will have a position reserved for you. As for the people we can’t keep, well, good luck trying to find a journalism job.
But at the end of the memo, something even more bizarre is said:
“Our new budget includes an ambitious expansion of our web and international operations, both for the Journal and for Newswires, where we are adding 95 journalists over coming months. We also have secured a generous investment in a state-of-the-art editing and publishing system. “
So they’re going to eliminate 50 jobs and then hire 95 people? What type of economy does News Corp. seem to think they’re floundering in? And hire a state-of-the-art editing system? So the computer will do the editing? I can imagine how that will look.
“JP Morgan investor see there stock sin.”

Bad Practice

Did you ever notice that people are always decrying the lack of ethics in the media or the slipshod reporting? Part of that might be due to the incredibly low wages that journalists are paid (see my previous post "A Lesson To Be Learned") .
But, what annoys me the most is the fact that most often it is other members of the media complaining about how the media has done a bad job. Yes, I think the media has screwed up in many ways--not questioning President Bush enough, devoting too much time to infotainment, etc. These are legitimate concerns. And as a journalist I do my best to not fall into that trap.
But what annoys me is that the people who complain loudest about this are talking heads who do nothing about it, and who actually contribute to the problem. Last time I checked Bill O'Reilly and the other commentators weren't doing anything to promote ethical reporting (in fact, they don't do any reporting at all--they're just reactionaries and its the purview of their assistants to sift through real news to find things for them to rail about). And the world of soundbites in which they live actually hurts the media and journalists' ability to do their job.

A Lesson To Be Learned

How many times have you heard that teachers aren't paid enough? It seems these days that it's a known fact, so much so that it's bandied about without any supporting evidence--sort of like an accepted truth like the earth's roundness or the certainty of taxes.
Now, I'm not here to get into a debate about how much teachers should be paid. But I would ask people to keep in mind that there are other professionals who get the same or even less pay than teachers, but they are never given the same attention. For instance, when was the last time you heard politicians railing for the need to increase the pay of social workers?
Not to mention that in a 2007 report done by the endowed chair for educational reform at the University of Arkansas found that the average public school teacher makes $34.06 an hour.
See the article in The February 2, 2007 edition of The Wall Street Journal: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009612
The article makes the point that it's only fair to compare teachers' salaries on an hourly basis because they work significantly fewer hours than other professionals (and nearly all professionals, like teachers, bring work home with them, so it's not fair to argue teacher work secret untold hours on that basis). Of course a teacher's salary looks paltry next a white collar worker's until you realize that teacher gets upwards of three months in holiday and summer breaks, the authors argue.
Except, it doesn't look paltry compared to the salaries of journalists I know. First year teachers make more than journalists with three to five years' experience, and not just on a $/hour basis. They make more money flat out for 9 months of work than these journalists do for 12. I know this from painful first hand experience. I'm not saying they're not doing an important job, but what are we, chopped liver? And let's be honest--something's not going well since the U.S. is slipping behind nearly all other developed countries when it comes to their students' grasp of core subjects like science and history.
Yes, educating children is important for our future, but isn't free speech and a free press important for the future and the present? I've heard enough about teachers' salaries being too low. There are plenty of other professions, including journalism, that deserve a boost before they do.

Recycling Murdoch’s Reject

The Washington Post is looking to downsize their newsroom. At least they must be since they’re hiring WSJ’s ex-managing editor Marcus Brauchli to head up the newsroom. If I were looking for a toolish neo-con to fire a bunch of people I had working for me, he’d be top on the list.

Brauchli’s biggest impact on The Wall Street Journal was helping facilitate a buyout by News Corp and then get left in the dust when Murdoch didn’t view him as essential to production. Oh, and he helped establish WSJ. (note the period), a so-called luxury magazine, since the world obviously needs more of those.

I don’t doubt the man’s journalistic skills, but I do doubt his managing ones. Some might say he was caught between a rock and a hard place at WSJ, trying to appease Murdoch’s demands for altering the paper to be less of a niche publication while trying to assure the staff that they would still have jobs in the New Corp. era. But as an ex-staffer, I can't say that he ever made me feel anything but irritated.

Salaries Can Buy a Lot of Supplies

Foul-mouthed billionaire turned Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell is tightening the belt on finances in the newspaper offices, according to The Chicago Sun-Times. Gerald Spector, the company's chief administration officer, said the office supply budget needed to be hacked by $500,000.

They can probably get about $100K back if employees stole fewer supplies. I can’t say for Tribune, but I remember watching an employee at an internship I had at a nonprofit loot the supplies cabinet once a week. He took folders, markers, pens, and reams and reams of computer paper. Maybe he sold it back to OfficeMax.

The seedy side of the Tribune cutback is that Spector drives a 2007 Lamborghini. Clearly the budget cuts aren’t affecting the administration too much. You could probably pay five reporters or editors for a year with the estimated cost of that car: $235,000. But Tribune won’t be doing that either. Layoffs are set to hit the company this summer.