Posted on 04/02/2008 3:31:08 AM PDT by Shirerwasright
They're angry at their demanding editors. They're angry about the mushrooming workload in shrinking newsrooms. They're even angry about other angry journalists. But these angry journalists are happy they can now vent their frustrations to the rest of the world, courtesy of angryjournalist.com, a sort of online complaint board allowing ink-stained wretches to gripe anonymously.
Ironically, their anger is partly fueled by the Internet, which has forced newspapers and television networks to reinvent themselves with painful consequences for their staffs.
There's the veterans complaining about newsrooms stretched thin by executives requiring reporters to produce stories for old and new media.
"I'm angry because my company, just like the rest of the industry, wants me to do more with less. They've said, 'To hell with quality. Let's just fill the website with as much (expletive) as possible,'" gripes Angry Journalist #241.
There's also the young guns frustrated by the culture clash.
"I hate the fact that print and online can't work together! Come on, online is the future, so please have some respect for the webeditors!" says Angry Journalist #700.
The website contains gripes ranging from existential musings about one's career to expletive-laced diatribes that trigger heated exchanges.
Angry Journalist #2559 seems to think that his or her newspaper serves for other purposes than informing readers: "Whatever I write ulimately (sic) either ends up as cage lining or as blankets for bums."
As one would expect at any other job, bosses get the brunt of the gripes.
"Our executive editor, the man who's supposed to be leading our newsroom, wanders around the building like he forgot where he left his coffee cup," writes Angry Journalist #2570.
The website was created by a former journalist who cut short his young career in the news business to work in political communications in Illinois. But he insists his decision to change paths was not driven by anger.
Kiyoshi Martinez, 23, who worked as Web editor for Chicago area community newspapers, said he was "disappointed" in his young journalism career about the direction of the industry.
In early February, the same month he quit journalism, Martinez launched his website after reading a study on burnout among newspaper journalists, which sparked his interest in knowing what was on reporters' minds.
Since then, his website has inspired an imitator, happyjournalist.com, which has much catching up to do with only about 100 "pieces of happiness" compared to the more than 2,600 gripes so far on angryjournalist.com.
"It's kind of depressing to see an industry treat its workers so badly," Martinez told AFP.
While venting about one's job is nothing new, Scott Reinardy, the journalism professor at Ball State University whose burnout study inspired Martinez, says angryjournalist.com provides a place for discussion about the direction of the news business in the age of the Internet.
"Angryjournalist is a tremendous site to allow journalists to vent," Reinardy said in a telephone interview.
"We're in a state of real transition and it's just going to take some time, it's going to take some pain before we can do it I'm afraid," he said. "The uncertainty is scary to people."
Steve Outing, a columnist for the trade publication Editor and Publisher, said news executives should pay attention to angryjournalist.com.
"Things get said on this website that otherwise would not get said -- other than perhaps at the neighborhood bar to co-workers or at home with a spouse," he wrote in his column last month. "I can't help but think that this is a good thing for the news industry."
Meanwhile, Martinez, who now works as a communications specialist for the Illinois Senate Republican Caucus, is happy to have left journalism, earning more money and more vacation in a better working environment.
"I'm having a blast," he said.
Angry Journalist #856 is also happier now: "I'm not angry anymore. I quit my job."
Please tell me your heart is just breaking over the plight of Journalists.
OK sarc alert off now.
online complaint board allowing ink-stained wretches to gripe anonymously.
Yawn. As if today’s journalists even know what ink is.
Now see you did it!
You’ve got me crying again! /s
20 years ago I stopped a bank robbery.
4 perps, the leader was wanted for 15 other robberies and assaults and went to jail for like.
Upon being interviewed by both the print media as well as t.v. news I read the papers and watched the news shows the next few days and though they reporters interviewed me as well as officers they got nearly every fact wrong.
I don’t know if they were ignorant, stupid or just liked making crap up but pathetic is the best description.
About as professional as a chineese fire drill.
I’ll give them something more to dislike and be angry about... HEY MEDIA... I HATE YOUR GUTS!
Signed,
America
Hang on while I find my fiddle.
We do have to do something. I suggest we create “angryconservatives.com”...oh wait....
BTTT.
Poor babies.
And yet, their complaints as quoted in the article are completely valid.
During my years working for the local newspaper (almost 3 weeks in the past, now) I saw lots of folks work very hard to turn out the best product they could. I watched a lot of them get burned out from the uphill nature of the battle, too.
Where did yo work Irv?
A couple weeks ago a local news reporter who had worked for years quit.
Seems he didn’t like having to carry his equipment to a story. Didn’t like having to do stories other than his specialty.
Seems his station had cut back and they cut out all extras and he had to do more than he had to in the past.
The newer hires were used to doing it all and stuck with it so it could be done, just the old timers didn’t want to do more.
Hey I have an idea...!
Maybe they ought to think about going back to a community college and learning a new trade...just like all those textile and autoworkers’ had to do.
What comes around goes around...!
I worked in the IT department of the Rochester, NY, Democrat and Chronicle for about five and a half years.
There are plenty worse places to work and they take their news very seriously. Still, I won’t be at all surprised to see a lot of newspapers fold in the next five years or so.
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