- Wed May 09, 2012 4:27 pm
#224391
'Journalist' is quite a big tent. Does Littlejohn even have a background in reporting? He's written an opinion column for as long as I can remember; that's nothing like what an agency stringer does, or a copy editor on a trade magazine.
Most journalists have a humanities background. The biggest sector of the media is the trade press, and few young journos have prior knowledge or experience of the industries they cover. Back in the day, they'd be given time to develop contacts and read up on the trade, under the mentorship of a senior journalist. That doesn't happen any more. As a result, they are absolutely dependent on corporate PR departments. Modern journalism is about rewriting press releases to make them as readable as possible, and perhaps contacting a lobbyist or consultant to get an opposing point of view. Quickly.
I worked in the trade press and for a wire service, and I could not describe my colleagues as thick. One of my fellow copy-editor/translators spoke half a dozen languages and was a published poet. In fact, there were quite a few would-be literary types for whom journalism was the day job. Another colleague had been a senior reporter on The Economist and the FT; he wrote extremely elegantly (though slowly), and was a stickler for accuracy. He was also a several-times-divorced alcoholic, a victim of the long-hours culture and editorial power politics. His contempt for management and proprietors was visceral.
By the time I quit (early 2000s), my workload had increased and changed dramatically. Although I'd been hired primarily as a translator, I was being asked to write more and more stories from scratch (or rather, from a press release). My 'speciality' was expanded to include stock and bond markets and financial services, although I'd never studied economics or worked in finance. My colleague who did the write-ups on the German desk had come straight from university with a PhD in French philosophy. We were working 10- and 12-hour shifts. The company was in trouble: where once newsrooms had paid good money for wire services, most of the information was now available for nothing on the internet or on Bloomberg. Our targets became speed-related: time spent checking details was time wasted. Revenues went into computer 'platforms' and programs for which we received no training. We'd been effectively de-skilled. The office had become a factory.
There's no room for intelligence in a factory, only cunning.
Most journalists have a humanities background. The biggest sector of the media is the trade press, and few young journos have prior knowledge or experience of the industries they cover. Back in the day, they'd be given time to develop contacts and read up on the trade, under the mentorship of a senior journalist. That doesn't happen any more. As a result, they are absolutely dependent on corporate PR departments. Modern journalism is about rewriting press releases to make them as readable as possible, and perhaps contacting a lobbyist or consultant to get an opposing point of view. Quickly.
I worked in the trade press and for a wire service, and I could not describe my colleagues as thick. One of my fellow copy-editor/translators spoke half a dozen languages and was a published poet. In fact, there were quite a few would-be literary types for whom journalism was the day job. Another colleague had been a senior reporter on The Economist and the FT; he wrote extremely elegantly (though slowly), and was a stickler for accuracy. He was also a several-times-divorced alcoholic, a victim of the long-hours culture and editorial power politics. His contempt for management and proprietors was visceral.
By the time I quit (early 2000s), my workload had increased and changed dramatically. Although I'd been hired primarily as a translator, I was being asked to write more and more stories from scratch (or rather, from a press release). My 'speciality' was expanded to include stock and bond markets and financial services, although I'd never studied economics or worked in finance. My colleague who did the write-ups on the German desk had come straight from university with a PhD in French philosophy. We were working 10- and 12-hour shifts. The company was in trouble: where once newsrooms had paid good money for wire services, most of the information was now available for nothing on the internet or on Bloomberg. Our targets became speed-related: time spent checking details was time wasted. Revenues went into computer 'platforms' and programs for which we received no training. We'd been effectively de-skilled. The office had become a factory.
There's no room for intelligence in a factory, only cunning.
- By Kreuzberger
- By Boiler
- By The Red Arrow