Back when I was a reporter, I remember getting press kits for the Newseum.
I thought at the time “these big-time journalists really want to build monuments to themselves.”
The problem with the media goes deeper than its Leftist bias — yes, I know that will be a revelation to many FReepers, but stay with me for a bit.
The ultimate corruption in the media is that nobody wants to do the hard work of putting out a newspaper or broadcast.
Call it “narcissism?” I’m not sure, but it’s a pervasive problem.
I spent 25 years in the biz, never made it to a major metro daily. You might say my career topped out at AA ball.
All these big-time reporters and editors want to be columnists, they want to be editorial writers, they want to hobnob with celebrities, they ultimately want to be celebrities themselves.
What nobody seems to want to do is cover the local school board meeting, or zoning board, or water and sewer authority, you name it.
But these are your first stops when you go looking for local news. They aren’t your only stops, but you’ve got to do the grunt work if you want to get the story.
Just as our president-elect is the “Blue-Collar Billionaire,” the media will only regain its credibility when it adopts a blue-collar attitude toward its work.
I spent 25 years as a word mechanic, a simple purveyor of information and maybe a little entertainment. It was never my job to “change the world” as so many journalism majors have been quoted as saying.
Actually, many of the old-school editors I worked with laughed at the pretensions of j-school grads. Of course, those old-school editors are now retired or passed away.
These old-school editors weren’t necessarily conservative, but they did have professional standards.
Today, I’m happily retired. It was a crazy business, and I don’t stay in touch with old colleagues — there isn’t any real friendship in a newsroom. How can real friendship happen among a group of self-promoters?
But I will say that I got to see a lot of things — especially factories and farms — that I never would have seen in any other business. Met a lot of interesting people too, and hopefully did right by them in my stories.