why doesn't my intern know how to stfu?

I was just throwing the j-school comment out there to expound on your big paper-little paper note. In no way am I throwing in the towell because of that. I've been competing against j-school kids throughout my entire college career. It's nothing I'm scared to do, or am bitter about, or am throwing in the towell because I can't overcome it. Just saying that's the way it is. And you agreed. Is it fair? Not always. Is life fair? Never. Besides....law school isn't big on my 2.3 GPA.

 

Politics are a part of any business. You can work for the same company for 15 years and have glowing reviews, but you get one ME with an axe to grind and you're either gritting your teeth or looking elsewhere.
My buddies who work 9-5 M-F get paid better, but I've known several who were laid off and couldn't find work for 2-3 years.
The real world isn't pretty at times. And I'm not talking about the GenXers living in a primo condo in SF, but making 15K and continuing to enjoy college diet staples such as tuna mac and frozen burritos.
But it is the real world. That extra 1-2 years of living on the edge makes you enjoy the coming years that much more.
If you're good, you'll make it. If you're not, most times you'll still make it.
The tough thing is getting complaints from people who think subject-verb agreement is a trendy new restaurant. And these people make at least 10K more per year than you do.
It's a trade off. Either you make tons of money sellling MRI machines and hating your life. Or you can feed off the energy and self-satisfaction of writing a good story on deadline each night. Nothing like it.
Give the profession a try, if that's what you want. Hell, you're young. There is so much time to make your final decision. Just don't look back at 30 or 35 or 40 and wonder why you never gave it a shot.
My dad told me that when I was 14 and entering high school. I rolled my eyes like he was an idiot. (He was. Hell, I was 14 and knew it all.) But that seems to be the one of the best pieces advice anyone can give or receive about your dilemma.

 

Dude: Don't listen to these ad hominem "arguments." If you don't want to do the gig, don't do the gig.

 

As far as the fear of failure, that's what Jerry West said has driven him his entire life. So who knows, maybe you'll be a logo someday.

 

Gee, this almost feels off-topic now, but I'll go on record as saying both our sports interns this summer have been kick-ass. We have a desk intern and a writing intern. I sense just a wee bit of entitlement every now and then. These kids have to learn that large papers may not have the budget to have top-of-the-line computer equipment like a small J-school or school paper. Anyway, they've both sucked it up and been willing to learn. The writer has come to me several times asking for advice on stories as well as proofing. And he actually heeded it. LOL

 

I'm kinda in the same boat with rolling in that I've got one year left of school, a fear of 5 nights a week ramen and a female reason to not want to move around too much in the coming years, but I feel like there's nothing else I'd rather do than write about sports. And that's enough to put aside any misgivings about peripheral shit like how much the people on this board bitch about their jobs. At the same time, though, you see how passionate these people are about what they do, which you don't find in most professions. In my opinion, the sacrifices are worth it to get to do what you love every day. Not too many people can say that.
Now there's the whole problem of getting a job in May.....

 

yes rolling, your bitter friends are right. they have (rightfully) been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. they do not believe working for newspapers will fulfill your need for a love of life. they know this business is doomed for failure because of their subjective minds. all minds, rolling, whether they be sports writers or perspective employees should be subjective. in this great universe of ours, newspapers are a mere insect, an ant, and in its job satisfaction as compared with the business world around it, should be measured by your intelligence of grasping the whole truth of knowing you should get the hell out, now.

yes, rolling, newspapers are dying and being a drone who sees them through to the bitter end sucks. sports guys do exist as certainly as a love of ego massage and loathing exist, and they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would the world be if you didn't throw your life away as a sports writer! It would be as dreary as if you didn't have a wife and children. there would be no childlike faith (because they wouldn't know who you are), no poetry (except for what you wrote, which would be forgotten by 5 p.m. the next day), no shitty pay to make tolerable this shitty existence. you will never be home at night, and your workplace never would pay you overtime for the hours you toiled. your first mugshot, which you took for your column, would no longer look like some man you no longer see in the mirror just one year after your idealism was extinguished.

not to believe in this way of life rolling! you might as not believe your sports editor won't have your back. you might get a publisher to hire men (and women) to sell all their journalistic integrity at deadline to sell two extra papers, but even if you did not end up working for the la times (and instead covered preps the rest of your life) what would that prove? nobody sees how great it is abandoning our families and working for a decade before we don't qualify for food stamps? the most real things in the world is ourselves, things our own children can not see. have you ever covered a super bowl? of course not, but that's proof you can work the rest of your life attempting to accomplish something you never will. nobody can conceive nor imagine all the wonders of what you'd love to accomplish in this business, which seldom is fare.

you tear apart the industry's spread sheets to see what drives it and see what makes the noise inside, but the veil covering the bottom line, which not even the strongest sports writer can keep a publisher from selling out to the one bitch who has your paper's number on speed dial. not even faith, poetry, love nor romance can push aside what front-office dorks believe drives circulation and they could give two shits of your views of supernatural beauty and glory beyond. is it all real? ah, rolling, in all this business there simply is nothing real and abiding.

no real life in newspapers! thank god, there are boards such as this to expose their lies forever. a thousand years from now, rolling, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now they will still hear your decision not to enter this business (your sigh of relief).

 

Life's too long to let the doomsayers drive you out of the business before you even start.

Give yourself from time. If ths is what you really want to do, at least give it a shot. If what you see happening does indeed happen after some amount of time, then you can get out, and try to do something different. You've got time to stick your nose in and pull it out if you don't like what you smell.

 

Fuck, how did this go from ripping apart smart-assed, snot-nosed kids to defending the business. It seems we're always defending it lately.

 

We are always defending it. Well, not "we."

Here's the way it works, Flash:

1) Bitch incessantly.
2) Do nothing to achieve solutions.
3) Be sure to club anyone who proposes a solution.
4) Sit on hands and wait for a solution to somehow get through steps 2 and 3.
5) Repeat from Step 1.

 

I gather 'bemoan the advent of the Internet and blogs' is included in 'bitch incessantly.'

 

Feel free to set up sort of an outline tree, such as:

1) Bitch incessantly.
A. About pay, lack of.
B. About time, lack of.
C. About standards, having.
D. About BLOGS!
E. About the Internet(s). Maybe it (they) will just go away if journos try hard enough.
F. About editors, clueless.
G. About editors, non-figurehead.
H. About athletes, most.
I. About parents, prep.