Again: This Is News?

[filkertom]

There are many, many things that could be said about our pathetic mainstream media, especially newspapers and wire services and why they seem to be ready to go the way of the passenger pigeon. Those media, especially newspapers and wire services, blame the internet for a lot of their woes: competition from blogging, the expectation of getting news for free, increased productions costs and God Damn The Unions, etc., etc., etc.

I really, really don't think it's occurred to them that newspapers and wire services might be dying because, well, they suck beyond suckage.

People want to please their bosses because they don't want to get laid off? Seriously? That's all you've got, on a Sunday? That wasn't news when there wasn't a worldwide economic crisis. That wasn't news when the Pyramids were being built, and you weren't laid off, you were horsewhipped before they buried you under Slab 17A. Now that people worldwide are hurting, the only thing this "news" does is increase the general nervousness level, and show that you're completely out of touch for thinking it's "news".

Some asshat who fancies himself an editor greenlit this. You can make the excuse that there are always fluff stories, intended to fill space, especially when a more important story misses deadline. But there is so much going on right now, so much for so many years, that you'd think something substantive might possibly be reported upon.

And I'm sure that dozens of newspapers ran this column over the weekend, and patted themselves on the back for keeping people "informed".

A lot of regulars here have been having job woes lately, and I feel for all of you, and wish you all a lot of luck. There is one aspect of this mess which might possibly work out -- sometimes, when you get pushed into the pool, you can turn it into a creditable 1-1/2 gainer. If you're not there already, what's your dream job, and how close are you to actually going for it? And, if you are there already, how's it working out?

Comments

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

I work in news biz and I'm doing all right. But we invented our own niche 20 years ago and nobody's willing to work hard enough to threaten our place. Our "recession" was last fall, when some of our subscribers dropped us for a month and then realized they could not do without us, so they got us back. Everything's OK now.

And no, I never would have greenlit that story. Obviously, somebody was trying to look busy for the boss... recursive, isn't it?

[per_solo]

Dream Job? being a convention planner full time, making money for it. I'm almost there (little over a year left), and some chatting with my former adviser, who wants to help me find the right fit, given my focus is conventions, as opposed to weddings, or sports venues or the like.

It'll be nice to be MAKING money (and paying back horrid student loans) as opposed to feeling like society's leech. :-)

[jannyblue.livejournal.com]

Wait.

You can actually get paid for that?

*ponders*

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

I kinda wandered into the financial industry 9 years ago, and I always thought I was pretty good at my job, so I would consider that to fall under your heading of "creditable". That changed not quite 2 years ago, when my boss changed jobs, and I fell by the wayside where my new manger was concerned. I couldn't do anything right, and as far as having her backup, there was none.
I'm not really sure anymore what my dream job is. The stress at work made me sick, and being sick ultimately pushed me over the financial edge. I still have my job but I am scared of losing it, and have no money to get other education. Somewhere along the line, the "dream job" went kinda grey.
Maybe I will find a job someday that is not just a job, that I am not just good at but that I also love. Goodness, I hope so.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Manager change always a problem... especially if you ARE good because they need to mark their space (like tomcats and doorsteps).. and you aren't one of theirs.
Nowt to do except remember that it isn't you, it's them, and to make damn sure you cover your back.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

Covering your back is not an option if they chose to make you look bad, and decide to put it all in your file, made-up or not. She ruined my reputation at work.
I have a new manager now, and here's hoping that I don't get sick for several weeks again.
Thanks though :)

[metafrantic.livejournal.com]

My dream job is writing and editing for a living. I'm doing both, co-editing Crossed Genres (http://crossedgenres.com) and writing in my spare time. But my wife and I still have to have day jobs, because CG won't support one of us, let alone both.

How close am I/are we? ...I'd say a few thousand subscriptions. Or a huge multi-book deal with five-figure advance. So nowhere near. But we are having a blast with what we're doing, and we're making our bills with the day jobs, so we're content to keep at it and see where it goes.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Life is pretty good. Company cut back to the point where cutting further would be detrimental, and I was one of the ones they kept, so I'm pretty confident at this point...

Ain't anywhere close to a dream job but it Fails To Suck, and it funds my motorsickle habit quite handily, so..... :)

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[cathain.livejournal.com]

My dream job is retirement. I've been a nurse for almost 35 years and I love it to death but I'm getting too damn old for it. I want to leave it to the younger set and just loaf around and hang out on the internet all day like the other retirees in my town. I'm sure I would get bored eventually but that's ok I have all kinds of backup things I want to do like learning a foreign language and traveling.

[faithwallis.livejournal.com]

Getting laid off as a part of the Great Caterpillar Layoff Deluge of 2008-2009 (tm) -- was a contract tech writer there -- may have been the best thing in the world for me.

I'm currently working at home for a company in another state, getting paid to do what I had at one time hated but am coming to embrace as my life's work -- technical writing. I enjoy it somewhat and I am considered very good at what I do, considering some of my colleagues' comments in previous jobs.

Yes, there are parts of my job I'd like to improve - but I don't think I'd want to go back where I was. Writing user assistance (help you get in an app when you press the F1 key) and software manuals is FUN to me. I'm hoping to branch into training and project management sometime too.

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

I'm a technical writer too. I write help files, internal and external manuals, and I'm currently redesigning a document template for a credit/debit advice. I also test software and do document handling. The company I work for is great, and our revenues and profits have gone up by double digit percentages in the last two quarters. We have a pretty specialised market niche, and are in an if not recession-proof, then recession-resistant industry.

This isn't, I would say, my "dream job," but steady paycheques are nice, I'm good at it, my coworkers are a bunch of lovable lunatics, and life is good. I mean, I think everyone with a penchant for writing goes through a phase where they dream of being a best-selling novellist, but I'm more or less over that now. And my first book will be out eventually, once both my publisher and I get our respective shit together.

I'm getting killed by food prices at the moment, but so is everyone else. On the other hand, I'm also potentially looking at having more work than I can handle and possibly having to fire a couple of my freelance clients in favour of larger, more lucrative jobs. Not to brag, but I got my ass kicked and face stomped repeatedly by the recession in the late 1990s around here, so it's nice to be going through one for once without feeling the effects too much.

[faithwallis.livejournal.com]

If you decide to "fire" your clients, your clients are reasonable, and they are looking for someone, would it be OK to send you my contact info to pass along? I'm currently trying to build my business (in case the promises of one of my clients don't come through and I don't get hired into their company).

[beldar.livejournal.com]

Kinda ironic that I say I'm pretty damn close to my dream job -- working at a newspaper.

Dream job is being a writer, and aside from the writing (and editing and page design) I get paid to do, I have some time and freedom to do other writing that I want to do -- maybe someday I'll make that pay, too (I can dream, right?).

Part of the reason I went for news/editorial in college journalism school over TV/radio is that broadcast news by its nature is more superficial, style-over-substance and image over everything. Printed news should fill the gaps but overall has failed. I can't take all the blame here, there's only so much I can do, and the small-town paper I work for makes a creditable effort at doing good by its readership. We just finished a bunch of stories on a county official who misused funds, had conflicts of interest, etc. When state and federal legislation hits home, we cover how it affects local citizens. We're not perfect, but I'd like to think we aren't part of the problem.

Though there are times we look at what gets big play in the big-city paper up the road and just shake our heads.

As for the Internet and similar technology killing newspapers that's largely true, because the industry hasn't found a good way to adjust. The business model is screwed, leaving not enough money to pay professional reporters who are actually good at their jobs, let alone all the other overhead (and since reporters don't sell ads, publishers often see them as non-revenue-generating and encourage shrinking the newsroom, leaving editors to fill news-hole with crappy puff pieces that piss off thinking people like yourself who stop reading the newspaper and downward the spiral goes).

I believe that journalism and newsgathering is not dying, but changing. I just hope I can keep up with the changes, and find foresighted-enough employers to keep me paying the rent.

[pyffe.livejournal.com]

I, too, enjoy the hell outta my job. Not that there aren't things about it I'd love to change, but as jobs go, writing engineering documentation is challenging, the people I work with are wonderful (and SMART), and I know my trade well enough to feel comfortable doing whatever they throw at me without too much trouble. The pay is good (enough to support our family of 4), I work from home two days a week, and if I wanted to, upon occasion, I'm allowed to work from wherever (like a campground or beach - anywhere I can reach a Verizon Wireless tower). I never set out to do this type of work. I never set out to do any type of work, and just have been content to go wherever the winds of fate blow me. So far, so good! As for layoffs, for some strange reason, I've always been at the right time and place for them. The first time I was laid off, there were tons of other jobs to choose from. The second time, I was a contractor, I went right to my next contract. This time, I'm an employee who's currently considered too valuable to lose, so I'm as safe as one can be for the time being.

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

I currently hate my I/T job and want out but can't afford to leave yet.

I'm one of those people that wants to work in an inventor's workshop all day and just make things. I've got sketches of handmade wooden tomes, small scale power generators, and any number of both art items as well as functional things.

I also want time to write, time to learn an instrument, time to think, time to do those things that I do because they come from inside not forced from outside.

Does any of this make any sense?

A number of years ago I gained a certain amount of awareness of my own creativity and have tried to nourish that where I can but with this job and things the way they are I'm losing that part of myself again and I'm kind of worried that it'll go away again. Frankly it scares me quite a bit. :-(

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

On the plus side, they spelled "forgoing" correctly.

Personally, I'd LOVE a layoff! Right now I'm fully vested in my retirement, scheduled to retire early 9/1/10, have enough money in the bank to last until then, and a layoff would be, for me, like paid vacation or even earlier retirement.

No taking on extra work for THIS guy.

[gorgeousgary]

My true dream job would involve returning to the design side of engineering. It would have me working with clueful architects on interesting projects with decent schedules. (That is, schedules that don't require I cough up weekends and evenings.) I would also do most of my own CAD work (except for maybe the fancy 3D and BIM stuff). Oh, and would pay decently, of course

This would probably involve me going into business for myself, which ain't gonna happen since I have very little business sense or marketing ability.

The current job (about which I just posted--though locked--on my LJ) comes fairly close to a dream job. I get to mix both engineering skills and writing skills. I get paid to fly across the country and visit friends (side effect of business travel to places where I know lots of folks). And I feel like I'm doing something important. (Didn't say it in my post, but in an indirect way, I'm essentially an advocate for affordable housing.)

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

A combination of inventing stuff and fiddling with ideas and concepts to bring in long-term wealth via patents and new products, and specialist consulting to bring in short-term income.

I suspect there are many, many people who would also like this combination, varying only in their particular area of fiddling/consulting interest.

ETA: I did do one job (well, a series of related jobs at the same employer) for seven years because I got comfortable enough with it for it to be Very Nice. I could easily have kept doing it for another seven, if the management hadn't suffered a cascading common sense breakdown and started hiring people who had no interest in the subject matter or doing a good job.

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

My dream job is to do small tool programming. Not a big project, lots of small targetted projects. Something that lets me keep flexing my skills and not let me get bored doing the same thing over and over again (customize the core app for XYZ Corp's configuration which is the same as ABC Company's configuration except for the tinmepoint names? Again?? No thank you!!) I am very good at software testing, but both of my degrees are in programming but I never get to do it professionally, and those skills have deeply deteriorated. I am not happy about that.

[fredhuggins.livejournal.com]

This just in: ICE IS FROZEN WATER!

[ash-blackwell.livejournal.com]

I have finally managed to make a living at my dream job. My husband and I own a full service game store- more than half of the "retail" space we are renting is actually an open gaming area. It's not a very popular model anymore we found out at GAMA's trade show, and less than half of the stores in Tucson bother with gaming space. We could have "made" it much earlier if we had not bothered either, but that's what makes it a dream job: teaching the games and helping people meet other people who like the same games. Not to mention the joy of watching the younger set grow up in the store and knowing we actually made a difference in their lives.

We have had the store since December of 2004 and my husband finally started paying his half of the bills just from the pay the store gives him June of last year. March of this year I was able to quit my second job (Target) and the two of us are completely supported by the store now. We might be able to afford a part time employee for Christmas this year. Since my concept of having "made it" never included sitting around doing nothing with more money than I know what to do with, I've got to say that last few months have been pretty close to perfect.

[capt-video.livejournal.com]

I got fired from a job I hated in mid-February... have to say, I'm enjoying unemployment. I'm drawing an unemployment check for the first time ever, after working full time for more than twenty years (not all at the same job!) I was able to be home for my husband while he recovered from spinal surgery, I've been able to spend more time with my brother's kids, I'm restoring several pieces of antique furniture and learning to cane chairs, and Mom and I are clearing our collections and making a little money on the side by doing doll shows, toy shows and antique fairs (we've been collecting since the early '70s... we've seen our hobby go from "why would ANYONE want that old junk?" to "Antiques Roadshow")

Dream job? I'd like to own a quirky little bookstore in one of the beautiful historic storefronts around here... books, a little tea counter, some antiques... maybe even a little art and music by some seriously under appreciated artists of my acquaintance.

On an odd turning lemons-into-lemonade twist, a chance meeting and conversation with a stranger at the history museum has me researching the feasibility of a sort of travel concierge business... essentially, creating an itinerary for people visiting my city who don't want to do the research themselves. Is it a job? Maybe. Is it a paying hobby? More likely. But the research costs me nothing but time at this stage, which I have plenty of... and if it works out, it will be fun!

[jasperjones22.livejournal.com]

I want to run my own greenhouse and produce essential oils. I am currently about to enter my senior year in horticulture with an eye towards a master degree which will give me the knowledge I need to not f it all up.

[catnip13.livejournal.com]

I'm a full time parent. I also barter personal chef services to a veterinarian and a lawyer (and would be willing to do so with more professionals). I used to do web design professionally, but my skills are outdated. I enjoyed that a lot. I did web design for bartered services too- for a florist and a vet. I'm going to be working a very part time job on Sundays selling plant starts at the farmer's market. I like doing a number of little jobs, it's fulfilling.

Well..

[brute-farce.livejournal.com]

First, I should say that your overall comment reminded me of an old Spider Robinson quote.. Roughly, "If we're dealing with editors here we are in REAL trouble." I started to chuckle, remembering that line - but I got as far as the first half of the opening "Heh" when it hit me.... We ARE dealing with editors, and we ARE in real trouble. The Editors control the info input, to large extent, for a great many sheeple. (Look it up) Control the input, direct the output. Garbage in, garbage out.

Now. That being off my chest I can go answer the opening question.
My dream job, oddly enough, is one I ALMOST used to do - Break/fix PC work, doing stuff like Warranty service on machines. Did it for a couple of years when I lived in NH, fixing people's machines for Dell. Upside: Meeting and helping public, most of whom were genuinely glad to see me. Usually done for the day by 1500. No weekends, often no Fridays either. Got to travel. Downside was, I had to use my own car and buy my own gas, and we're talking 3000 miles a month! Especially post-Katrina, the pay was simply not enough. The month I resigned, the company (Not Dell) I worked for GRUDGINGLY gave an extra $0.03 per mile - which didn't raise their rate to 50% of the Federal minimum, BTW - which meant that all taken together it was only costing me $16 a day to work. Pass.

Give me that job's equivalent in RI where I am now, a company car and a fleet gas card, and I'm happy as a clam, believe it or not. I've held several other jobs since then, and been out of work since the day after last Xmas now, but I'd take that one again in a hot second.

[kkatowll.livejournal.com]

Ironically, I have my dream job...working as a newspaper reporter.
It's a diverse profession and we all love to kick the paper that's a little bigger than us, a time-honored pastime among readers as well. There's always something stupid in the paper, something non-essential or just plain asinine, especially in the opinion pages...
But I still maintain that we provide an essential service that democracy cannot function without.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I want to be very clear about this.

"[W]e provide an essential service that democracy cannot function without" is one of the biggest understatements in human history.

That's why bullshit pap such as the "story" I linked to above makes me so nuckin' futs. There are careers waiting to be made over good writing, good reporting, real investigative work, things that matter, many many many things that simply don't get time in the mainstream. And yet, somehow, they can find the time and column inches for this.

No, I'm most definitely on your side. I want newspapers and wire services to rise to the occasion.

Still waiting.

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

I think I would be good as a game designer. I can quickly spot what works and what doesn't in games, which is confirmed in player forums shortly thereafter, and I can create a game, from concept to playtest-ready rules, in a few hours. But this is a job I could never get. Big game companies require you have extensive programming experience before you're considered, believing that "game design" is some kind of coding ability. This results in hundreds of AAA big-budget games that all seem the same. Small game companies believe that since they can code they are naturally gifted game designers, which results in hundreds of low-budget games that all seem the same. Nope, only chance I have of letting my game-creating talents reach the general public is to win the lottery and hire a couple of programmers to do my bidding.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

It is important to remember that in electronic media, there is no space limitation. The competition for column-inches has been removed, and replaced by competition of mouse-clicks. The dynamic is, on the scale of the history of news, pretty darned new. I wouldn't expect them to know how to deal with it yet, since most of the folks in the business got into it before the Internet was a major news source.

And, let us be brutally honest. The history of news is full of crappy stories. The observation that the news media doesn't do a good job is as old as the news media - going back to the time of Ben Franklin! There's never been a Golden Age of news where a majority of the stories were actually good. The 90% of everything is crud quite thoroughly applies now, and always has.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

On the plus side, we now have the ability to amalgamate news from all over the planet in real time, including from specialist publications, and filter out the uninteresting stuff to a degree.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Quite true. Of course, putting some of the burden of filtering on the reader probably takes pressure off editors to flush out individual chaff stories.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Ah, but places which are not providing a strong stream of wanted content find their stuff being read less and less.

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

I could bitch about my being fired, and my job search, but I'd like to comment on what Tom said about news.

Ages ago, there may have been Perry White types that determined what news determined attention and made it important. Those days are long gone, and they left because news became a profit center for TV stations.

Over my time in TV, I saw features and documentaries and just plain entertainment programs that were produced locally dry up and blow away. The big step came when Saint Reagan insisted that TV stations didn't need to prove they were serving their communities, thus giving them the right to kill anything that didn't make a profit.

Now, how do you get your news to stand out from the other stations? Flashy graphics. Impressive news music. Handsome reporters. And the big shibboleth, "news you can use."

What news can individuals use? Well, if they were civic minded, city council meetings would be good, but they aren't spectacular. For news directors, "news you can use" turns out to be car crashes, robberies, rapes, crime scenes and arrested subjects spitting curses that have to be bleeped. Used to be they'd end the news with a cute story of a lost kitten or a funny incident, something to end the news with a smile. Never any more.

Republicans gained power by fear. So do TV evangelists. So do talk radio hosts. But the most regular users of fear are your local TV newscasts. By constantly threatening the viewer with phenomena that can kill you, they've made Americans paranoid and fearful. This demand for terror has polluted, not simply our body politic, but our lives.

Since I was fired, I have not seen a TV newscast from anyone, although I still watch Olbelmann, Maddow and Stewart. I feel a lot better about life and my future.

I think that after Americans abandon newspapers and magazines, they'll abandon TV news as well.

[smparadox.livejournal.com]

My "dream job" would involve winning the lottery and living off interest from the winnings. Work is not to enjoy - work is suffering in order to earn the money to live, and it sucks even when it is enjoyable. It sucks even more if anyone above you realizes there is anything enjoyable about your job, as they will take steps to remove any such aspect.

Second choice would be acting - that was fun back in High school, although making it a job would inevitably suck the fun out of it.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

There's work that is completely unfun, and fun stuff that can be done at work. There's even stuff which, if done often enough, can be tentatively classified as work, or even a career, just by default. Someone who is independently wealthy but paints for the joy of it might still be called an artist even if they never sell a single painting.

Ideally, there would be something that you really like doing, you probably wouldn't get bored with, and which it's technically possible someone might actually pay you to do.

Me, I like designing random stuff to solve problems. I'm no engineer, and actually building half of it would drive me nuts from boredom, but I like gnawing on conceptual roadblocks. I actually have a weekly meetup group which gets together to do this commercially, and it may end up making me beer money via part-ownership and patents on a couple dozen projects, but at the moment I do it for free because I like bashing away at a different problem every month and batting ideas back and forth between myself and the other group members.

I could probably see myself doing something similar for music and drawing, as well, if I ever bothered to learn how to do it better. Not making an entire career out of it, but I'd be happy to play the odd gig or sketch up the occasional commission for cash in hand.

Heck, I'm looking at doing something similar for computer support in the local area. I'm fine with solving a handful of things a week and getting a meal or gas money out of it.

[ldyerzsie.livejournal.com]

I used to think I knew what my "dream job" was. Now I'm not so sure. I do know that I highly enjoy the job I have right now. I have worked my way up the food chain to an inspector position in Air Quality in a state environmental agency. I get to do a bit of in-state travel, I get to meet and TRY to help people--there is only so much I can do under our laws--and I have learned more about industries that I had never thought to be curious about than I could have imagined. I get to write reports AND I even get to muck about with databases. All this and reasonable leave request policies.

[andpuff.livejournal.com]

It's working out great. Thanks for asking. *g*

[crysthewolf.livejournal.com]

I hope you're keeping ahold of some of this for the "blogging vs. journalism" panel at Incon. ;)