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The Plight of Print's Lucky Ones
New York, 7:28 PM
Tue Dec 1
50 posts in the last 24 hours
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08/28/09
First off, absolutely nobody I know who works in publishing actually had a clear path to do what they do. A few folks explicitly studied in the field that they are now writing about, but it's far from the rule. If you know how to write and know how to express yourself, you can be a writer anywhere.
Oh, and if you can't be a writer, here's a news flash. WRITING FOR OTHER PURPOSES IS NOT DEAD! Be an ad copywriter. Or better yet, realize that while web 2.0 means a lot of "hack" writing is relegated to outside contributions, an editor is still needed. Also, realize that web pubs truly want folks with old-media experience because they actually can do the work and just need to adapt slightly.
Also, this past 30 nonsense. 100% baloney. If you have a 6 figure job now and you want to switch careers, you can do it and you know it. Even a high 5 figure job. You might want to revaluate what you do: Maybe it's not that you're a good editor, but you are a good manager. And that skill can be applied in new media.
And as far as young folks go, I've met and interviewed tons of hot/young tech folks and there's no magic to someone 20 years old when it comes to tech. If anything, most kids nowadays just have ZERO attention span and ZERO attention to detail. So while they can SMS like a pro, their work sucks. So please youth always exists. But the silver lining to old pros worried about their jobs disappearing is that young folks are by default harder to get quality work done with. And more apt to "jump ship".
A lot of what is dying seems to be the 1980s mentality of being a career writer. But that said, it is scary out there because there is still no clear end to this sea change that will make it easy to stay comfortable anywhere.
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/27/09
Speaking of counterpoints, this fucking guy sounds like Maurice Spandrell. Maybe a martyrdom to your uselessness and futility is in order? Kidding. But seriously, lift weights or learn Spanish or some shit. Carpe some goddamn diem.
08/27/09
08/27/09
Still, I have a boring job too and I know I have to keep my chin up or I'll be the one bringing down my life and not the variations in economic conditions. And no offense to all you proto-Menckens out there but editing for a glossy magazine is usually lampooned as a luxurious job a person is damn lucky to get. Hence the need for mixers where people are all trying to climb the ladder. You don't see a networking event for janitors.
I know we all have to put food on the table and can't help feeling ways about how we do it but this sounds more like Mittelschmerz than Weltschmerz to me. I guess I still think I have a chance.
If I haven't shot it by already.
I mean, If I haven't shot by it already. Or maybe, If I haven't already passed it by.
08/27/09
08/27/09
In fact, there wasn't.
The internet wasn't really a major thing yet, Netscape hadn't even been released, but there was a sense that the economy was about to start some kind of seismic shift.
18 years later, it's still shifting. I've never had a stable, set career path in my professional life. It's always been boom, bust, find the new thing, boom, bust, find the new thing, etc.
Furthermore, none of my contemporaries had this expectation of having some sort of fantastic, sexy career upon entering the workforce either. Is this something new? Like from the last 10 years or so? Because I don't know where anyone would have gotten such a notion from.
My parents worked in media (publishing) when I was a kid in New York, and they were feeling their way through it too. So I know it wasn't just my generation.
When did people get so damned entitled?
08/27/09
Getting hired was difficult, and you couldn't expect to make a lot of money unless you got very lucky, but generally you could rely on being employed if you didn't screw up too badly (that unions protected lower-level ees from employer excesses helped).
People who went to law, medical, and business school had similar expectations and they often had to go into major debt.
I don't think that's a crazy sense of entitlement.
08/27/09
I've been through a couple more booms-and-busts than you have, and this one is different. Trust me, this is not just cleaning out the greedheads and the lightweights. Some serious wealth got wiped out in the last two or three years, and we still don't know if things are turning around yet. This is 1930s-scary.
08/27/09
Two things really confuse me though - not about the article's writing but some of the people in it.
First, who the hell complains, in a recession, about having to work harder? It does not sound sympathy-invoking to say that my new job is sooo much harder than my old one. It's bullshit about the lack of insurance, of course - that's a huge problem - but when did we promise people that their jobs would get easier as they got older? I've seen no evidence of that.
Secondly, am I naive in thinking this 30-something is totally not too old to learn a new trick? I see this in all these comments, too: no one wants someone without internet experience. What's so hard about going and getting some internet experience? In the last week I've had lunch with 4 different people with 4 different awesome internet projects they want to get off the ground with no money - people trying to bootstrap their lives and careers. Good for them. Each one, though, requires some writing, and I'll bet every one of them would be PSYCHED to partner with an old media person looking to learn some shit for little or no pay. Then presto. You have a startup on your resume. It's not that hard. Am I missing something?
08/27/09
We had to throw away the old Romantic art-school sell of being beret-wearing painters in Paris, going on to become a lot more realistic, and I, for one, am so glad. There's was also a "stupid" stigma attached to the visual world, like we were too dumb to get into a "real" school, so we opted out of life in some pseudo-bohemian fashion. How untrue. We are now designers, photographers, writers, bloggers, whatever is necessary.
I was at a party some while back with some musicians in their 50s, listening to them bemoan how free web content has "robbed" them of a living. Really?! How?! Last time I checked, I didn't have time to steal copied MP3's. And anyway, didn't we all trade bootlegs in college? How is this new digital divide different? In short...they had developed THE FEAR OF THE NEW. Bad sign.
Writers, I beseech you. Adapt. Or die.
08/27/09
Other countries have faster internet, better health care (or any health care), more jobs, better benefits and better looking neighbors. You see them walking through my town, (San Francisco). They are happy, rich foreigners looking at us with a mixture of pity and amusement. We are mediocre boors, loud and defiant in our stupidity and filth.
Here we are, watching television, crawling with undiagnosed diseases; hauling around our massive, fat asses; (asses that have dingleberries since, here, we don't do bidets); and we still think we are Number One at something.
Being an American is going to be one long dose of awful, unless you are one of the lucky few to either inherit, marry or strike it rich. Of course, the rest of us are so frickin retarded from all the television, drugs and booze that we will think this means some "American Dream" is in effect.
Poor people here actually believe it's just a matter of time before they "make it big" - instead of concluding, like the lower classes in other countries, that we had better act in concert to get our rights in order. Why blow shit up to make your government treat you right when you are just a rich person BEFORE the dream.
Of course, I include myself in all of the above - and not any of you if you disagree with me.
08/27/09
08/27/09
08/27/09
What we have here in this current set of circumstances is an unhappy convergence of two main factors. First, ad revenues suck, they're in the crapper and they won't get better until the economy improves markedly. Second, we're undergoing a major demographic shift in how people consume media.
As a person who entered the media workforce during the last recession, and who's taken some pretty gigantic hits in this latest downturn, including seeing a major revenue stream almost lose its viability completely, I can offer some encouraging words. Namely, this won't last forever, in fact I'm seeing signs of stability already. Things are beginning to turn around. This is not to say it didn't require some significant adjustment on my part. I've had to develop an entirely new stream of revenue, develop new contacts, and reach out to try new ways of working.
I guess this is all by way of saying, the surest way out of the recession is through your own creativity. Look around, figure out where the money still is. There IS still money out there, and a lot of it isn't going anywhere. Sure, the work may not be sexy, the money may not be stupendous, but if the pay is stable and the work looks like it's not going away anytime soon, then grab that fucker and hang on to it.
08/27/09
08/27/09
08/27/09
It's like paying for a honeymoon and getting jilted. At least you have some form of worthy work experience to help you "find something else".
08/27/09
A) There is no job security in any creative field.
B) There is no clearly charted career path. Again, it's not "the phone company."
C) If you want to play it safe, Wal-Mart has many fine job openings available. Anything creative is high-risk. So keeping your head down and hoping you won't be noticed is futile.
D)99.9% of the people in the field are not as creative or special as their parents raised them to believe.
08/27/09
08/27/09
What came through for me in the story and comments is this desperate and unattractive need for someone to "care."
The truth of the matter is, nobody really does care for the plight of these folks. The City is largely indifferent and beyond the weak mewing of perfunctory sympathy, even their friends are indifferent.
Their parents, professors, p.r. flacks and transient lovers did them a grave disservice in not setting them straight somewhere along the line.
08/27/09
I believe the future is video. Everyone will have more advanced smart phone-like touch screens (tablets, if you will), and all our news will be based on video format.
However, people keep forgetting that someone will still have to write out a script. So, maybe not all is lost.
08/27/09
in the future, you will be unemployed. So, maybe not all is lost.
08/27/09
Tell you what. I'll keep trying to do honest work, and you keep making others feel like shit in the hopes that somehow you can cover up the hole in your soul.
Deal?
08/27/09
08/27/09
Personally, I despise the silly rich kid internship culture that media companies push regardless of the quality of work. That sort of namedropping bullshit doesn't lead to good journalism that serves the public interest. Period.
Journalism used to be blue collar work, maybe it is again. Maybe that will help us avoid some of the Jayson Blair's of the world.
08/27/09
Also, I have worked for big (McGraw-Hill) and small (so very, very small) media. I have never encountered a "silly rich kid intern" in those years. Must be a New York thing.
08/27/09
One time he literally went around the class and quizzed everyone what their parents did for a living. Everyone said "doctor," "lawyer," "entertainment industry," "professor," "engineer," etc. Only one girl said, "my parents own a dry-cleaning business."
The prof exploded with satisfaction--he kept praising this girl in front of all of us (to her great embarrassment; she looked mortified). What a marvelous contender she was to excel in journalism because her parents own a dry-cleaning shop! Hurray! She's the one who's gonna keep journalism honest--not ridiculous maggots like us whose entitled parents took us on trips abroad and made sure we learned multiple languages. Three cheers and a beer!
PS: Jayson Blair was hired by the NYT via a kind of affirmative action program meant to increase diversity in the newsroom, and kept on even when his line editor argued he should be fired, because the higher-ups were afraid that would expose them to libel. I mean, if you're REALLY gonna open that can of worms that Jayson Blair is..
08/28/09
Doesn't it seem odd that a line supervisor would have to argue to get a subordinate fired? Do we think that, in light of the revelations about his/her employee comiting fraud under his/her watch, a line supervisor might want to protect his/her ass from also being fired?
Lastly, how would the Times be exposed to LIBEL? Are you confusing a wrongful termination tort claim with a lawsuit the subject of a story might bring for being defamed in print? I'm trying to figure out what cause of action Blair might have for libel. If he were just quietly fired and the Times didn't run a story accusing him of something they knew to be false, he wouldn't have any claim at all for libel—which, if I remember my comm law from many years ago, is defaming a person's character in print with falsehoods, AND only nets damages in excess of actual damaged caused if reckless disregard for the truth can be demonstrated. Again, it has been a long time since I went over libel and slander, but last I remember the truth is an absolute defense.
I'm re-reading your slightly weird, vague statement and it now occurs to me that you might be saying that after firing Blair, the Times would be libeled BY Blair.
08/28/09
Was just making a point that Jayson Blair was not some namby-pamby rich kid who got the NYT gig through connections, but rather a fair example of a "blue collar" journalist, which is a most ridiculous concept to cherish. Anywhoo, point taken--I shouldda stayed away from touching Jayson Blair--his is too convoluted and complex a story to address in clever soundbites.
08/28/09
08/27/09
I work in architecture and after 9/11 I bounced from firm to firm as construction projects dried up. I eventually ended up working for the government and can't get fired now unless I rob a bank or kill someone.
Media's demise I think can be largely blamed on letting the Perez Hilton and Drudges of the world set the standard for what has become the vast wasteland of new journalism.
And after reading what appears to be an overall lack of enthusiasm and job prospects amongst seasoned journalists, things aren't going to get better any day soon.
08/27/09
Media's demise is a lot more complex than that, and it would make for a terribly long post.