"Why I left News"

She definitely didn't leave for any of those reasons. Related and NSFW:

 

Why do people feel the need to announce they're leaving the news business? The pope resigns, it's a big deal. A 28-yr old whiner who didn't like being called on her birthday, not a big deal. A good rule to live by: You should actually have a career before you announce your angst-ridden decision to leave it.

You quit your job? WHO CARES. People leave jobs every day. Get a new one and stfu.

 

I don't have a real problem with her writing it. The headline seems to be a play on the famed "Why I Left Goldman Sachs" article. She's gotten 295 responses. Someone is interested.

 

Substantive thoughts:

• She damned near derails the entire piece with the ridiculousness about well-to-do reporters not being willing to shake a homeless person's hand and so forth.
• I don't think she adequately and satisfactorily lays out her contentment with the "dark side." I didn't go into public or media relations. I went into law. And I mostly like it, but one thing is tough to get used to: Someone is paying me to take a particular stance, rather than me taking it independently upon my own evaluation of a situation. I would have liked to hear what she had to say about that, rather that defensively dismissing her colleagues' comments.
• She was crying because her editor asked her to make a child with cancer seem "sadder"? Please. I don't doubt that reporters get pressured to trump up the emotional impact of stories - look what happened with Esquire and the NIU shooter piece. But there's a difference between asking a reporter to lie and asking a reporter to alter the presentation, focus, or structure of a piece for greater impact. She gives no indication about which of these things happened here.
• She doesn't really sell her point, ultimately. Reporters work hard? A lot of people do. Reporters work off the clock? A lot of professionals do. She didn't make enough money? Well, how much did she make? And how much does she make now? She never tells us. What did that do to her lifestyle? Did she have trouble paying the electricity bill? The water bill? Traveling home for Christmas? We don't know. She doesn't tell us.
• Nobody misses your byline. But it's nice of them to say it.

 

I'm sure her present employer is looking forward to her "Why I left PR" screed.

 

Remember when people used to announce they were leaving sportsjournalists.com? That was always a hoot.

 

Exactly what I was thinking.

No one cares about your fantasy team, no one cares that you're leaving an anonymous message board, and no one will miss your byline when you've 'left news' after a brief and unremarkable visit.

There's a way to do a piece like this. Admit you're not cut out for the business, you got caught up in the fantasy of the industry, disillusioned by the reality. But the whiny 'newspapers destroyed newspapers' tone is so trite and arrogant, especially from a 28 yr old. There are ways to be successful in any business. Figure it out or do something else.

 

I didn't leave News. News left me.

Hard to miss the two-faced bitch these days.

 

"You go girl!"

Anyway, I have to get ready for work. I hope I don't have to touch any homeless people.

 

Ms. Bird's post is No. 3 seed in the Plain Dealer preps bracket.

Not sure what to write to that. I think it's kind of a generational thing. Folks in that 18-34 age bracket have been weaned to be high achievers and high consumers, and rewarded in ways commensurate with those traits. So they ask versions of the existential questions: Why, when I did all the right things, did it not happen the way I planned? And why are these people of a different generation still the gatekeepers?

Hell, I see it manifested in a lot of national writers who, stripped of some sense of their idealism, swing the pendulum hard to "Fuck it - everybody gets theirs because nobody plays fair." It's a dangerous kind of libertine principles, a kind of "educated rebel" class, rejecting the old "do unto others" trope because they've seen too many folks who haven't had it done unto them. Bird's post is a much softer version of that worldview, seen clearly in the line about a colleague "whispering" to Bird about another open job. It's still, underneath all, a competition.

 

J.D. Salinger isn't part of my generation; 20-somethings have been jaded for a very long time.

 

"Allyson Bird." Not necessarily Jewish. That could be why she's not getting asked very often.