Time was, you wrote a scathing op-ed, you won awards. The chilling effect here is not a one-time thing; it’s going to discourage an entire generation from entering journalism, cutting their teeth at college outlets and getting the major fuckups out of their systems before finally getting serious.
The corporate model at this point would make Goebbels proud, but that’s not the only path. Thing is, every journey starts with a first step, and if you remove that, there’s no destination. The media will start looking like Congress, with very few young people involved.
Ironically, this is not going to make Gannett, Sinclair or any other dysfunctional corporate “journalism” conglomerate happy. They rely on a meat grinder of recent college grads who are still idealistic and ready to work for insulting pay. The knock-on effects here are rather self-evident but will take a few years to become fully apparent. This is a step toward making sure corporate media can’t function in the future, which should be alarming to shareholders of those companies.
You think growth looks bad now? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Over on r/journalism, a frequently asked question is what grad school to go to, as though a master’s in journalism gets you any net benefits. The currency in the industry is clips, not degrees. The whole system breaks down if people don’t feel safe learning by doing.
Admittedly I know little about journalism as a profession and practice, but I feel this is an absolute spot on take. So much of what’s happening is going to shake up pretty much everything. Here’s hoping it wakes enough people up to mobilize for radically good change that puts the working class first.
I should likely clarify that I want corporate journalism eviscerated. The issue is primarily that we still need fresh voices and new perspectives on what the field overall becomes. My role (such as it is, unemployed currently) is to steward as best I can during my period where I’m seasoned. But someone needs to take over when people like me are no longer relevant.
It may be argued that apps such as TikTok and Instagram are replacing “traditional journalism.” Well, yeah, but a treatise about attention spans is outside the scope of the discussion. And it’s worth bearing in mind that despite social media warping people’s interactions with news, the industry has brought this upon itself by not meeting readers where they’re at.
I hated the first time I had to lay out a listicle, in 2008. But people were still willing to read 25" about a city council meeting even if we also had “10 ways to [fill in the blank]” prettied up – and no one and I mean no one in budget meetings liked that we’d stooped to this. But that’s of course senior staff, and I was the young guy, 28.
For some levity, that newsroom was where we had as a source a local historian. The first time Dick Fallis was brought up in budget, I lost it, and the editors found it hilarious … “Oh, Pete’s not heard his name yet,” the editor said.
