sportsjournalism today

And it's exactly why I feel great about landing back at one. Everything is so controlled/canned at the college and pro levels now that going back to preps was actually invigorating.

That, and minimal travel is super appealing once you've got a family.

 

Reporting on the trend? They're part of it.

 

Additionally, the people who thrive and advance in such a structure are mediocre sycophants who turn into company men/women and make life stressful for everyone else. Had an editor in one of the bigger chains a decade ago who was truly lousy at her job, but buttered up the right folks and moved her way up the totem pole, eventually becoming a managing editor at another paper.

 

I left journalism in 2016. I only wish it had been around 1996. I never thought I'd say that.

But spending my last four years in a concrete cubicle next to the press as part of a design hub, a block away from the newsroom, having to pick up four pages in the A section for Sunday rather than concentrating fully on sports ... those were dark days. I'm just lucky I had some good people around me. And in retrospect, I should have read the writing on the wall much better.

I missed journalism for about three days after it was over. Maybe three days.

My second career is more rewarding, and especially more conducive to a work/home balance.

 

You hiring?

 

You can type. Wow somebody on the civil service exam. Worked for me.

 

You've read my work. I can barely type.

 

There was hardly a better experience than producing something really good and being able to grab a paper off the presses at midnight to see how it looked. It was a fabulous way to spend 42 years, but I'm glad I'm not a part of what the job has become. I'm also shocked I cannot recall the last time I held a daily newspaper in my hand.

 

This. A thousand times this.

 

We get the Sunday newspaper delivered because my wife like the coupons. She'll be reading a story and comment on it to me. Inevitably I'll tell her I already read the story - or a version of it - online. I'm the same way, a retired newspaper lifer who is continually saddened by what now seems to be the norm.

 

'Twas a great feelin', no doubt.