Is it just me or are today's younger journalists lazy?

This is what kills me when I hear people complain about "kids today" ... most recently my parents, aunts and uncles. They're the ones who raised us. They're the ones who did this. They're the ones who created the "everyone gets a trophy" mentality. It is simply a case of reaping what they have sown.

Again, this is a broad generalization. I know lazy people of all ages, I know dedicated people of all ages. I'll admit I've been both. But I hate being stereotyped.

 

"Paying your dues." Ah, yes, how you all yearn for the days when someone like Mike Royko could walk off the military base right into a columnist gig at the Chicago Daily News.

I mean, this is big-time revisionist history. People skipped steps then. They skip them now.

 

yeah, pringle, but this isn't about that. There are and have been people who have the attitude that theyr'e great right now, and they are, so they succeed.

And there are people who have the attitude that they're great right now, but they really aren't. They could get there if they wanted to work hard. But they don't think they should have to.

By the way, Royko couldn't have happened that way in 2006, not at a mainstream, big-city newspaper. It's a whole different world in the business.

On the other hand, there are probably people blogging out there in obscurity right now who are going to be big media stars someday.

 

I don't know if it's even a sense of entitlement as much as it is more opportunities. Not just with the market favoring younger, cheaper labor, but it seems that society is more mobile these days.

(Now watch as I risk making my own generalizations...)

Job postings are nationwide, job searches are nationwide, contacts are formed from different time zones, people are getting married and having kids later, so a lot of the new generation can just get up and go. They're also not as afraid of debt (even though that's mostly not a good thing).

They're primed to move up at the drop of a hat, not particularly caring if they have to move elsewhere to do it. Paying dues might mean something completely different nowadays, because it's not like kids waiting to move up to the adult table at family get-togethers. The Internet makes it a lot easier to see that there are far more tables that could be reached.

 

This be why I think long and hard before starting a thread. Any thread.

(Or I may be apathetic. Only I know the real truth.)

 

You're afraid someone will think you are an asshole?

 

Sort of, Ace. It's a sociological comment; topic-starters tend to get bashed first and answered later.

 

That's what I was trying to get at with Royko - you would think that back in the good ol' days, every reporter started in the mail room, where he slaved for 10 years before being promoted to doing door security before, at the ripe old age of 40 or so, someone finally let him try his hand at taking a prep call-in ... there have been plenty of people in this business - yesterday, today, and in the future - who got somewhere without "paying dues."

At some point, talent has to be part of the equation, not just "paying dues."

 

Because the first post is incoherent?

 

Seeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?

 

Too often, though, talent is not part of the equation for hiring.

That's my problem with the younger folks these days -- the presentation of opportunities they haven't earned.

Like it or not, there's a hard fact here -- newspapers hire younger because they don't want to pay the $. I don't even have a problem with that really. Hell, it's a great business model -- have so many more potential employees than jobs, then pay your current employees shit, treat them like shit, never resolve any issues or offer any long-term security, then say: "There's the door" if anyone dares to complain. And there will always be some naive (and probably dumb) youngster waiting to take it up the ass because he or she is SURE it will be different.

But anyway, if newspapers want to hire younger to save the $, then just fucking admit it. Just say: "We're in a perpetual downturn, so we will continue to hire youngsters."

Then the youngsters should admit and realize they are getting hired not because of their brimming talent, but because they are dumb and naive enough to accept the low salary.

It's not the act; it's the lie that goes with it.

 

I agree, to a certain extent.

My younger brother is considering a journalism career and I have told him that he'll never have a problem finding an entry-level job. The trick will be finding a job that can support you and (possibly) a family at a reasonably comfortable middle-class level. Those jobs are harder to come by. And it's why many people do journalism for a couple years before "dropping out" to go to law school, teaching, grad school, etc.