New Type Of Reporter?

I'd quit on the spots before selling ads as a journalist.

Combine jobs as a photographer, videographer, editor, social media guru, writer, reporter, fine.

There's an ethical line that cannot be crossed and that is reporting on the same business you're approaching to sell ads to.

 

I would not sell ads. No knack for it, no interest in doing it. What I would do is freelance at a paper or site and combine that with another part-time job or two. I also think journalism, moreso now than ever, is not a profession for someone who wants a white picket fence and 2 kids. And people will need to move around more and be willing to travel light and move 500 miles to take a new job. There is also no such thing as loyalty any more. You give your two weeks' notice if you're leaving but otherwise, don't think twice about leaving the good ol' Herald-Fishrap "family" if there's something better out there.

 

If you work at a weekly, you do it all.

 

Wouldn't Fredrick want to take a job away from a suit?

 

I have worked at a weekly. I did not sell ads.

 

He would love it. Could say work 70 hours not 40 up from his typical 60 schtick. Frederick get some stones and stand up to your boss

Why should you when you know the business side has no loyalty either today. If you have no ties to the local Herald-Fishrap, why wouldn't you leave if you work hard and something better comes along? Don't you want something better?

 

If I was gonna be a salesman I’d go sell something that would actually make some money not fcking newspaper ads on the side

 

I'd rather just cut right to the chase.

Interview someone, turn off my recording device and ask for 50 bucks. Why waste time selling ads?

 

God, no shit, you said it.

I don't want to be a dick to the original poster, but I get a kick out of the "future of journalism" posts sometimes. As far as newspapers are concerned, there is no future.

Do what you do as long as you can do it, then go do something else. It's that simple. Like you said, if I have to sell something, I'll go sell something worth selling.

 

The branding of this as "the new type of reporter" and not a complete failure of this business is a completely fucked up thing that would only be said by a suit trying to squeeze the last bit of profit out of our craft.

 

I didn't sell ads at Patch, but I did make joint appearances with a rep at some advertisers' places of business. And, like newspapers, I wrote a few puff pieces -- like a store opening -- thinly disguised as news. This is nothing new.

But I have always wondered why in the blue fuck newspapers would cannibalize their revenue and send multiple reporters to cover a Krispy Kreme opening? For the same reason I suppose papers never do in-depth investigations of supermarkets.

 

As a Murdoch-Murdoch exec turned owner tabloid, the Herald crossed a zillion ethical lines. But they never asked a reporter or a columnist to do so, at least as far as I know. The atrocities were management's alone.