For the ex-journalists here...

[JackS]

One thing this thread is reminding me of, and it was something that I sensed from people who had left the paper before me and put my faith in when I decided to leave, is that not one person has said they were not happier in their new fields. Most say they are tremendously happier. Food for thought as anyone wonders what they'd ever do without newspapering.

But keep in mind that the people who would get out and stay out would (mostly) be those who were unhappiest where they were.

Others would either be staying in or doing everything possible to get back in.

 

[doctorquant]

1. What do you miss most about sports journalism?

I always liked being in the press box after a college game pecking away. I don't really know why, but I enjoyed that and, in the first years after I got out, I missed that a lot.

2. What do you miss least?

Of course the crappy pay and hours, but also, I found the tedium and repetition to be overwhelming after a time. Events that I'd have been thrilled to cover early in my career -- the Masters, the ACC tournament, various big bowl games -- got to the point that they bored me. I still enjoyed following those events after my journalism career, I just was very bored covering them.

3. What do you do now?

Tenured professor in the business school at a big but nondescript public university. This is my second post-journalism career. Before this I worked as a skilled tradesman (high-precision machining).

4. Are you happier with your new career?

God, yes. Just this morning a friend mentioned seeing video from the SEC media days and I almost shuddered at even the thought of being there/doing that again.

In answer to the later question: I left sports journalism when it became apparent that: A) I wasn't going to be any happier in the biz; and B) at that level of happiness it was going to be nigh-on-impossible for me to perform well enough to keep my employer happy with me. I wasn't fired, I wasn't laid off and I wasn't asked to quit, but one of those things would likely have happened had I stayed in the biz.

 

[LongTimeListener]

One thing this thread is reminding me of, and it was something that I sensed from people who had left the paper before me and put my faith in when I decided to leave, is that not one person has said they were not happier in their new fields. Most say they are tremendously happier. Food for thought as anyone wonders what they'd ever do without newspapering.

But keep in mind that the people who would get out and stay out would (mostly) be those who were unhappiest where they were.

Others would either be staying in or doing everything possible to get back in.

No. I'm including the people who were laid off and at the time would have given anything to keep their jobs or find new ones in the field.

 

[TyWebb]

Think this is a great thread, but I'm wondering if there should be an addendum to whether you chose to leave the field or was it a matter of necessity (laid off, move, etc.). Wondering if the way someone leaves affects how they view their current situation. Or I could be completely full of crap. Or both. I have a friend who chose to leave in a fit of frustration and the grass wasn't greener. Have another who was forced to leave and made his peace with it and moved on to better things.

Strangely enough, I was let go as I was preparing to leave. The week of my final interview with my current company, I was subject to a round of layoffs.

I landed the job several days later, which meant I got a new, better job, two weeks off AND a severance. Couldn't have worked out better for me.

 

[BTExpress]

not one person has said they were not happier in their new fields. Most say they are tremendously happier. Food for thought as anyone wonders what they'd ever do without newspapering.

Hope that's really true, but I'm a little skeptical.

It's like when you ask people how their vacation was or if they regret having kids.

Nobody ever has a bad vacation.

And nobody ever regrets having kids.

And that's impossible, of course.

Strangely enough, I was let go as I was preparing to leave. The week of my final interview with my current company, I was subject to a round of layoffs.

I was always hoping something like that would happen . . . since I would have been at about 27 weeks of severance pay.

But I wound up leaving for a new job (still in the same business, however) on my own.

 

[writingump]

1. I miss the byplay with co-workers, even after being out of an office for four years.
2. I don't miss the backstabbing, the moronic phone calls or the vindictive editor who fired me and then got his a few years later.
3. I'm a freelancer and a softball/baseball umpire. So yes, I guess I'm still in the biz, but I don't have to go into an office and there's much to be said for that.
4. Much happier, because of what I said about never having to go into an office. I can pick and choose what I do. If I want to umpire/officiate volleyball for half the year, I can. If I want to cover college sports/NFL/NHL/local preps, I can.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

1. The camaraderie with my peers, and the actual writing and reporting.
2. The hours and the being on-demand 24/7. The latter was particularly tough as our paper was infamous for a complete lack of planning ability at all levels of management.
3. I'm an editor at an electronic publishing and digital information services company. Despite the title, it's more like library science than it is like journalism.
4. Much happier in some ways, like having a family life and regular hours, and not as happy in others. Newspaper work was joyously fulfilling to me. What I do now is just a good job. Not knocking it at all, just isn't the same.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I had two options, stay in the field, but I would have had to move my family. My wife has a really good job and her family is here, so what would be the point of uprooting everyone just so I could take a job that could be phased out a couple years later?

I know I've told this story before, but I know of a guy who was let go a few years back, but a few months later there was an opening within the chain. He moved his family across the country on his dime and then six months later, he was bounced again...

Brutal shirt...

 

[SellOut]

not one person has said they were not happier in their new fields. Most say they are tremendously happier. Food for thought as anyone wonders what they'd ever do without newspapering.

Hope that's really true, but I'm a little skeptical.

It's like when you ask people how their vacation was or if they regret having kids.

Nobody ever has a bad vacation.

And nobody ever regrets having kids.

And that's impossible, of course.

Strangely enough, I was let go as I was preparing to leave. The week of my final interview with my current company, I was subject to a round of layoffs.

I was always hoping something like that would happen . . . since I would have been at about 27 weeks of severance pay.

But I wound up leaving for a new job (still in the same business, however) on my own.

I'll piggyback on this, but obviously lots of folks on this thread who are not in the biz any longer still have a passion for it, which is fantastic. Just wondering if that passion is still there, why are you doing something else (which may have been what I was trying to get at but couldn't quite say in my original post).

 

[JackS]

One thing this thread is reminding me of, and it was something that I sensed from people who had left the paper before me and put my faith in when I decided to leave, is that not one person has said they were not happier in their new fields. Most say they are tremendously happier. Food for thought as anyone wonders what they'd ever do without newspapering.

But keep in mind that the people who would get out and stay out would (mostly) be those who were unhappiest where they were.

Others would either be staying in or doing everything possible to get back in.

No. I'm including the people who were laid off and at the time would have given anything to keep their jobs or find new ones in the field.

Yeah, but by definition you're not including those that stayed in or were successful getting back in.

Your post just comes off a little too much like everybody would be happier in another field, whether that's intended or not.

 

[bigpern23]

I had two options, stay in the field, but I would have had to move my family. My wife has a really good job and her family is here, so what would be the point of uprooting everyone just so I could take a job that could be phased out a couple years later?

I know I've told this story before, but I know of a guy who was let go a few years back, but a few months later there was an opening within the chain. He moved his family across the country on his dime and then six months later, he was bounced again...

Brutal shirt...

I moved about 5,000 miles to begin work at my last shop and, before I accepted, I asked the EE what kind of stability the paper had because I didn't want to move that far only to get laid off. He told me he obviously couldn't see the future, but the company was investing in the paper and expanding its resources, so he was sure we'd go at least two years without layoffs. I got laid off one year, 11 months after accepting the gig.

And I didn't even have it the worst. One guy moved and bought a new house in the area to start the job just three months before we got laid off.

As to the thread itself, I'm in sports writing part-time now, but it is a lot different than when I was full time, so here goes:
1) In addition to some of the other things mentioned such as camaraderie and deadline pressure, I miss chasing the big story. Finding out something, or hearing a rumor, and tracking it down until you get it confirmed and report it before the other guy.

2) I do not miss all the nights, weekend and holiday events that I couldn't attend with family and/or friends. People were always jealous when I'd spend a random Thursday golfing or at the beach, but more often it was me who was missing a Memorial Day barbecue or Thanksgiving dinner.

3) Now I work for my alma mater in public relations part time and at a small daily I worked at coming out of college part time. I'm hoping to transition full-time into a PR job. They actually value the skills I have and are willing to pay a good wage for them and it offers much more regular hours and no guilt trips for taking a vacation.

4) Things are going well for me personally, and I am optimistic about some things professionally. But I will say that my career goals now largely focus on doing something that gives me stability, good pay and regular hours rather than something that truly excites me. This is a question I'll have to defer on for now.

 

[WriteThinking]

One thing this thread is reminding me of, and it was something that I sensed from people who had left the paper before me and put my faith in when I decided to leave, is that not one person has said they were not happier in their new fields. Most say they are tremendously happier. Food for thought as anyone wonders what they'd ever do without newspapering.

But keep in mind that the people who would get out and stay out would (mostly) be those who were unhappiest where they were.

Not necessarily. What I think it is is that they may not have known any better, until they got out.

Journalism is such an all-consuming business, and even if you tried not to get consumed with it, the work itself is, by nature, 24/7 and on-call, etc.

If you like it at all -- and let's face it, most of us are/were probably passionate about it -- you may be clueless as to how things could be. Heck, you may not even care how else it could be, unless and until you experience it.

It's obliviousness and a lack of perspective rather than obvious unhappiness.

I'll piggyback on this, but obviously lots of folks on this thread who are not in the biz any longer still have a passion for it, which is fantastic. Just wondering if that passion is still there, why are you doing something else (which may have been what I was trying to get at but couldn't quite say in my original post).

For many of us, the passion is still there, but maybe not the opportunities. Some of us might get back in -- only for the right opportunity, though.

Or, maybe there is still passion, but not necessarily enough of it to make us want to opt back into all the constant stress over the possibility not just of losing jobs, but also of being beaten on something -- which is worse now that everything is 24/7 -- or of having to do everything, even the littlest thing, immediately, or of having to live according to everybody else's schedules (other people who, often, are at odds with us and our purposes no less) and of maybe having to fight for everything you get.

Much of journalism is generated not from within your office or company, but from without and is dependent to a large extent on the whims, willingness and cooperation of opposing forces.

You get into something where you don't have to deal with any of that, and it's so...not easy, exactly, but so relatively stress-free, that it's eye-opening and you may never go back. There may be some passion for journalism still...but not love, anymore, because you know better, and, just as with romance, there is a difference.

I'm with LTL. I, too, was thinking that this is a rather damning thread.