2 posts tagged “journalism”

When I went off to St. Bonaventure University, I was one of 65,000 incoming freshmen across the U.S. who signed up for a career in journalism. Presumably, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman were culpable in inspiring thousands of would-be muck-rakers.

We didn't all stay in the business. Bad pay, discrimination, alcoholism, and a general absence of ethics among many editors soured the profession, at least for me.

Fast forward to today: blogs and podcasts have created a sub-culture of bystander journalists. Result: Gannett laying off thousands of reporters. NPR jettisoning Farai Chideya and Ketzel Levine, among others. Journalism, as a profession, will lose about 30% of its workforce. You can blame the exodus of classified advertising to the web, if you like. But I think it has more to do with the thinness of the editorial product. I've read many articles lately without a single attributed quote, or just a smattering of detail.

This cutback in actual news content made it easier for us to flee to the web for in-depth reporting. I no longer rely on the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle to cover Albany politics; I can just read the Albany newspaper's website, and related blogs.

So, where will all those departed editorial staffers land? Either in PR or universities. PR is already a pretty easy game; with fewer editorial gatekeepers to keep out the promotional stories, it's easier to pitch an idea as "news."

But the college environment must undergo some kind of curriculum catharsis. The market for would-be investigative reporters will shrink, if not completely evaporate.

Those editors-turned-professors had better be ready to teach their incoming students to write for business or for advertising. Because I'm not certain there will be enough newspapers or newsmagazines to sustain the calibre of journalism I once aspired to pursue.