The Sad State Of Career Journalism

Commentary from a Gawker reader who calls himself Solomon Grundy. I couldn't have said it better myself. The original post explains how among 75 L.A. Times' reporters laid off, only 11 have found fulltime jobs. Most of which blow.

"Among my friends who lost their well-paid media gigs (which is quite a few), I don't know anybody who moved laterally to a similar job. Some started doing something altogether different, a few got into the commercial end (such as business copy writing), and most collect unemployment if they're lucky and freelance for much less money at much shittier pubs. Almost everybody who used to do serious journalism is now 'working on a book,' but I classify that as an unpaid hobby.

My friends who still have steady, long-term jobs (that they used to complain about) are simultaneously thankful and stressed about losing those jobs. The only people whose careers are moving slightly upwards are my young, inexperienced friends and former interns who until recently were basically working for free. I wonder how much longer before these talented, idealistic friends take a hard look at their career prospects and jump ship.

For a generation or two journalism was considered a solidly middle to upper middle class profession that attracted the best and brightest and rewarded them with placid little lives straight out of Mary Tyler Moore or Bridget Jones. It seems that for most folks in the industry it's going to revert to being a lower lower middle class gig. Glancing at other countries where journalism has lower prestige and compensation suggests that all the magazines are going to suck such balls that no one should ever speak of them, and the smaller newspapers (which in the future we will call local news feeds) will be rehashed press releases and newswire feeds written by mediocre shlubs, with a tiny elite of pubs doing great work.

All the future-people who would have been journalists, what will they become instead? Ballerinas? Astronauts? Jockeys in Dubai? It's a very exciting time for these counter-factual would-have-been-journalists. So many possibilities."