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The manufactured pomp and circumstance of Valentine’s Day has come and gone but this essay, written by Mimi Johnson, the wife of Steve Buttry, a lifelong newspaperman who finally fell out of love with a business that did not love him back, is a true valentine to the passion that motivates working journalists everywhere – and to the people who love them even when print journalism cannot.
Buttry recently started a job with a new, online Washington, D.C. news project being launched by Allbritton Communications, Politico’s parent company. Johnson writes:
Do I think this will be our last move? Maybe. Do I think this upstart start-up will be successful? I hope so. Do I think other news organizations follow? Beats me. The truth is, there’re only three things I can say with certainty about this new endeavor:
1. My husband will throw himself into his new job and he will love it.2. This new business will not love him back.
3. I will.
(h/t Esmé E. Deprez)
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