Bitten and Smitten: Why Journalism Is Like Falling For The Wrong Person
By Tom Foremski - June 24, 2009
I was at an event this evening and I met a journalist who was new to the profession. She had been in IT and now was working for a San Francisco newspaper. She asked if I had any words of advice for a new journalist.
I said welcome. But be careful it doesn't get under your skin because if it does, it will become a problem. It'll be very difficult to leave.
In many ways, being bitten by journalism is similar to being smitten. It's similar to falling for the wrong person.
- You know that there is no way the relationship can work out (because currently there is no future in paying journalism) but you can't resist going back, trying to make the relationship work.
- You curse and threaten to break up but then late at night you keep thinking about that person, and romanticising the great times, forgetting about the bad times. You end up calling (posting stories) late at night (I often file after midnight).
- Your friends tell you to let go, to see someone else, that the relationship was bad for you, it was dragging you down, you were losing sleep and losing money. You need to move on. But where? Who? (Who will understand you the same way that journalism does?)
- When it's good it's great (front page stories, accolades, scoops). When it's bad it's dramatic, horrible, emotionally draining (constant layoffs, not knowing if you have a job the next week).
- Every time you see that person, your heart skips, adrenaline rushes in, you feel euphoric (writing a great news story, meeting those deadlines).
- After each encounter you look forward to the next one, you feel complete, alert yet relaxed. (After every deadline, after filing that news story, publishing that original you-can-only-get-here story.)
- When they aren't around you can't help thinking about them, fantasising conversations and situations. (You can't help thinking about news angles, writing stories in your head, coming up with great, original angles.)
- When they aren't around you keep replaying conversations, thinking about what you should have said. (In your head you rewrite headlines and news angles on stories you've already written.)
- You can't wait to get back to see them, to get back to that keyboard, to use your fingers, to caress into being that next encounter, (that next news story.)
- But they drive you crazy, they don't realize how much you sacrifice for them, how much you do for them, you are frustrated how they take you for granted (how much work goes into a news story, how much of you is in that story).
- You can't trust them, you know they'll run off with someone else if they feel like it (your editors will take free content if they can get it, if someone wants to work for free, great).
- You threaten to leave because you realize its too much of a one-way street, they will never appreciate you (you can't make a living in journalism, you know you will never be paid what your work is worth.)
- There's a lot of shouting, gnashing of teeth, group relationship counseling (journalists getting together to commiserate and swap horrible stories about what's going on in their profession).
- You can't live with them and you can't live without them. (You could leave journalism but you know you can't.)
- It's a messed up relationship, full of passion and no future. But isn't that always the best kind? The most memorable?
- - -
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (right) was smitten by Jane Burden, the wife of fellow Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painter William Morris.
June 24, 2009 | Permalink | Comment | Category: CultureWatch | Subscribe to SVW
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Comments (6)
Great post, Tom. When friends ask me if I miss journalism, my response is: No. I loved Journalism, but Journalism didn't love me.
Posted: June 25, 2009 10:25 AM
Francis: Well said!
Posted: June 25, 2009 10:33 AM
This hit home. Because of a journalism degree(and long radio news career)I met two presidents, the Queen of England, multiple other politicians, covered disasters and court cases, hosted morning talk shows, and ended up as a news sidekick on a morning radio show (and a bit of a star, if I do say so myself). All was very fulfilling but the small paycheck and lack of job security made for tough times between jobs. So, I am now am in PR. My own child has naturally gravitated to writing and was editor of her school paper - and is heading to college - as a Journalism major at a school where you can't change a major. The bottom line - writing can always be used - like a starving actor who becomes a producer, or a singer who becomes a manager of a better singer - journalism is still a thrill going in - and opens doors to PR, to tech writing and other jobs. I totally get the "unrequited love" - if you offered me a journalism job tomorrow that paid and was secure - I'd be there! While keeping my day job, of course!
Posted: June 26, 2009 4:15 PM
I was a daily and weekly newspaper journalist for 15 years. I loved the work but had to choose another job because I wanted my family to live above the poverty line. The problem with journalism is that you have to work for publishers. I worked for four of them and only one was half-way concerned about the welfare of the creative people who produced the product that made them money. Publishers could have adjusted and prospered with the coming of the Web but they ran their most creative and smartest people off years ago. They squeezed and neglected them (expense side) while coddling their sales people (revenue side). Alas, they were too busy counting their money in the days of 30 percent margins to see the approaching tsunami. Sadly, many journalists have been swept away along with their shortsighted employers. As a testament to their arrogant stupidity -- and a measure of how little they regarded their most valuable asset -- publishers gave away the creative content for free, thinking that advertisers would keep paying for the privilege of being in an online version of their newspapers and magazines.
Posted: June 26, 2009 10:15 PM
Lovely, painful, true. Modern day Greek tragedy.
You have the makings of a great screenplay. Maybe the stage and screen can become a next great seduction! But then, there's transformation hitting there, too.
This was a great read. I'd love to hear it performed at a J-School-themed slam in San Francisco's sunny South Park.
Posted: June 28, 2009 12:05 AM
The bottom line - writing can always be used - like a starving actor who becomes a producer, or a singer who becomes a manager of a better singer - journalism is still a thrill going in - and opens doors to PR, to tech writing and other jobs.
Posted: July 9, 2009 9:35 AM