Here’s a sad little parable about The State of Contemporary Journalism, a tale told of the Chicago Tribune and related by Gawker’s John Cook:
According to a source inside the Tribune Tower, for the last six months the paper has required all of its features reporters—that would be its arts writers, food writers, culture writers, etc.—to come in on Sundays, on a rotating basis, and write an entertainment/gossip column called “Face Time” for Monday’s paper. They are instructed to do this by scanning what TMZ and the US Weekly web site have reported over the weekend, and rehash it for Monday.
“You’ve got highly skilled reporters rewriting three-day old gossip from web sites to go in the next days’ paper,” the source says.
Cook sums up this sorry situation well: “And here we thought it was blogs that just rewrite stuff from newspapers. The snake is eating itself, and soon it will be all gone.”
What is the j-school's strategy for dealing with these realities? More slick new media workshops to learn how to get paid half as much? Blogging 101? Social networking? What do these things really mean? If the snake is eating itself, then what happens to us and democracy when the meal is complete? One of my best friends won a major international reporting award today. An hour later he learned that his bureau might be closing down. Ariana Huffington wants him to work for free and the j-scool wants him to attend a Twitter seminar, as if that's gonna put viable food on his plate. Hello, Titanic.
#1 Posted by Jason Kersten, CJR on Fri 17 Apr 2009 at 10:33 PM
Jason, the reality is that the primary concern of the people in the j-schools is to keep their jobs. (This is reasonable, frankly.) To do so, they need to re-invent themselves. One example in academia: library schools are now I-Schools (information schools)with only a small percentage of their students assuming that they will work in libraries. The second is non-academic: fire departments are mostly emergency (usually medical) first responders. The number of fires to put out is relatively few. J-schools do not have an obligation to create viable options for those who have already graduated unless is serves their primary purpose and is the best option for them. Don't assume that it is.
#2 Posted by Susan, CJR on Sat 18 Apr 2009 at 04:12 PM
I hear ya Jason. From my point of view, pursuing an undergraduate degree in journalism was a mistake. I graduated with a 3.5 GPA, and in terms of finding a job, my degree isn't worth the paper it was printed on.
My advice to any high school seniors considering journalism? Study something practical instead.
"Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits, a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo cage."
- Hunter Thompson
#3 Posted by Hardrada, CJR on Sat 18 Apr 2009 at 06:21 PM