Why they hate us

They were just fine with the media when Hearst, McCormick and Luce loomed large over the media landscape.

 

There's not much I can add other than "amen, brothers and sisters."

If there was ever a "golden age" for media, I missed it, too. The whole idea, as it was proposed to all of us, was work hard in smaller markets, build a killer air check, get hired at a medium market, build an even more killer air check, and eventually you'll get paid what you deserve.

It worked for several people whom I hired, like Vicky Moore, who has been on KNX mornings for years. Or C.L. Brown, who went from Rocky Mount to Louisville to ESPN.com to the News & Observer, covering his first love, the ACC. Or "Martdawg" Smith, who was a kid fresh out of Radford who couldn't write a lick for NASCAR.com, but man, could he network -- and he worked damn hard to make himself a commodity that fits perfectly with whatever ESPN does. Plus, he's frickin' selling Dodges and Frosted Flakes on the TV!

So it can be done. It's just the odds of being in the right place at the right time are incredibly long and getting longer by the day. The Titanic has sunk, and there are fewer and fewer lifeboats that are getting more and more crowded. Every merger, every consolidation, every venture that goes under means somebody else is willing to do almost anything to work your job. And Frederick's "suits" aren't immune, either. It's just an MBA opens doors in other industries where the skill sets are parallel.

In 1980, the median career for a broadcast news reporter was 2.1 years and the median annual salary was around $10,000. In 12 years of bouncing from Florida to California to Florida to California to North Carolina, I never made more than $18,000, which meant Gwen's substitute teacher salary was larger than what I brought in for between 50-60 hours of weekly on-air and production.

I won awards for covering Challenger and Loma Prieta, but never could parlay those experiences into a better gig.

When I finally said "enough" at WPTF (making $6/hour running the board overnights) in 1991 and called up the Herald-Sun to work the agate page, I thought maybe I could climb the ladder in print. It got me six years of hard labor as sports editor of the Telegram, which won me another four North Carolina Press Association Awards, but I was still stuck Down East until I reinvented myself a third time when sports web sites suddenly popped up.

It only took 20-plus years, the invention of new technology and finally being in the right place for once. I'm reminded of the saying, "luck is where preparation meets opportunity." But you can prepare your entire career and never get a sniff of the opportunity.

I had a blast. But knowing what I know now, I'd definitely major in something else in college, and offer to work prep football games or run the radio station as a hobby.

 

I worked with mid-management editorial types not much older than I in dailies who never went to college. Newspapering was the blue collar job of the white collar economy.

 

https://lessenberryink.com/2021/11/...xxzrLsalIh2fvxpAOkCuloSDc6onV-ZSVNtBnXzEE1H-Y

 

I started at the Hillsdale Daily News, which was rookie ball
Went to Marquette (Class A), then Clearwater (Double-A, small paper in big market), Jacksonville (Triple A) then Detroit
You can’t do that today

 

I remember about 10 years ago reading the obit of a guy who'd been the editor of the Philly Daily News. He'd started as a copy boy while in high school, went to WW2, came back, got rehired by the paper and had a full career as a copy editor, then supervising editor, and eventually boss. That kind of career is impossible at any level of media now and has been for decades. But it's tough for an industry if it has Ivy or equivalent college requirements for hiring newbies and pays entry level jobs less than Amazon does.

 

Where I work (rhymes with Lannett) the content coaches are hammering us with "the game story is dead." Maybe it is in the metro but in little East Podunk where they're 30 miles from the nearest TV and radio outlets we're still "the paper of record" and they're reading our gamers and player features more than the "8 ways to carve your tuekey" features they tell us we should be running

 

Why do they hate us?

Because too many of us participate in the framing of all new events such that they comport with the status quo preferred by our shadowy corporate benefactors, affirming the world view of wealth and privilege while acting indignantly if anyone accuses us of complicity and intellectual laziness.

 

We had a meeting once where the powers from corporate implored us to strive for prestigious awards like Best of Gannett
Pulitzer? Nah
Best of Gannett? Oh yeah

 

So many reasons for the hate...but mostly some combination of:

a) Vulture capitalists buying paper chains and gutting staff — especially eliminating copy editors, which lets more mistakes get through, which fuels confirmation bias for people already predisposed to hate us

b) Most people just aren't very bright in general, which makes them easily swayed by cable news/Facebook rhetoric telling them that we're the enemy

c) People now seek out media that tells them what they want to hear, and anything fact-based isn't going to be that

 

The only emails I delete faster than PR pitches are Best of Gannett reminders