What WOULD it take for you to leave this business?

[Moderator1]

A great job offer in the city where I already live - that's all it took for me. Loved, loved my newspaper career. Didn't much like my short visit to the management side of it. A former colleague/staffer asked me recently if I thought it would be different had I stayed on the beat. Don't know. I enjoyed that more than I enjoyed management but I would have kvetched over the state of the newspaper biz and probably jumped anyway. Maybe I would have been one of those folks the Web sites grabbed. Probably not.

 

[lono]

I look at it like this:

When the cream-of-the-crop talent becomes that disenchanted with this biz that they leave, and the uppers LET their most talented folks leave without trying to convince them otherwise, then you know it's time to enter a new industry/career. I'm not talking layoffs or buyouts, either. Just glance all of the nation's best writers/reporters who've jumped ship and gone to work for the Web or work on books.

It's sickening. It's sad.

Signed,

Eagerly Awaiting The Right Buyout Offer

Why is it sickening and sad? And for whom?

Writers aren't turning their backs on newspapers.

Newspapers turned their backs on writers first.

 

[Tom Petty]

A great job offer in the city where I already live - that's all it took for me. Loved, loved my newspaper career. Didn't much like my short visit to the management side of it. A former colleague/staffer asked me recently if I thought it would be different had I stayed on the beat. Don't know. I enjoyed that more than I enjoyed management but I would have kvetched over the state of the newspaper biz and probably jumped anyway. Maybe I would have been one of those folks the Web sites grabbed. Probably not.

would you have been offered the job you have if you weren't an SE?

 

[Aurelio]

The worst part really is that good work doesn't matter, can't save you. Makes you feel like it's all been a waste for everyone below the Suit level.

 

[Moderator1]

A great job offer in the city where I already live - that's all it took for me. Loved, loved my newspaper career. Didn't much like my short visit to the management side of it. A former colleague/staffer asked me recently if I thought it would be different had I stayed on the beat. Don't know. I enjoyed that more than I enjoyed management but I would have kvetched over the state of the newspaper biz and probably jumped anyway. Maybe I would have been one of those folks the Web sites grabbed. Probably not.

would you have been offered the job you have if you weren't an SE?

Good question. Probably not. I covered VCU years ago. A different athletic hierarchy is in place now and they got to know me as SE, not as a guy on the beat.

 

[SlickWillie71]

Not much.

Like some of you, I was fanatical about this industry and thought I'd retire as one of old guys who'd have younger writers gathering around him after games. The last five months have totally destroyed any hopes of that, as I've seen this industry running a Randy Moss out route to heck. I'll still love to write (and will doing freelance), but after doing this for 19 years, it's time to get out. I go full tilt with my job, but the more I work, the less my higher-ups care.

I would say that I'm likely out by year's end. Once I do, there's no chance in heck I'd come back. The ghosts of Red Smith and Tex Maule couldn't convince me.

 

[ServeItUp]

It would take a job with security, full benefits and a good retirement plan. As I stopped giving a shirt about my career two years ago next month (I'll give you the exact date if you want), the bottom line is that I've learned to separate myself from my career and all I want is a place to go 40 hours a week, draw a paycheck, pay for my visits to the doc and dentist (which I haven't done since college) and then leave behind for two CONSECUTIVE days until I have to go back.

And if it were in the Mountain or Pacific time zones, so much the better. But this beggar won't be a chooser.

 

[Aurelio]

And by the way, anyone who encourages a young person to enter this business is without conscience.

 

[Ace]

I'm at the point that if the local insurance agency leaves a good-smelling pie on the windowsill, I'm outta here.

 

[Aurelio]

One thing is for sure. There's no such thing as selling out anymore, no matter what job you take outside the business. And that includes being a bookie or a used car salesman. And being a bookie is more honorable that being a newspaper suit or a newspaper editor who is forever lying to the staff while doing the corporate office's bidding.

 

[Joe Williams]

One thing is for sure. There's no such thing as selling out anymore, no matter what job you take outside the business. And that includes being a bookie or a used car salesman. And being a bookie is more honorable that being a newspaper suit or a newspaper editor who is forever lying to the staff while doing the corporate office's bidding.

Get a load of the big brain on Mr. Five Vowels.

I'm with you, Aurelio. WFW.

 

[Tom Petty]

A great job offer in the city where I already live - that's all it took for me. Loved, loved my newspaper career. Didn't much like my short visit to the management side of it. A former colleague/staffer asked me recently if I thought it would be different had I stayed on the beat. Don't know. I enjoyed that more than I enjoyed management but I would have kvetched over the state of the newspaper biz and probably jumped anyway. Maybe I would have been one of those folks the Web sites grabbed. Probably not.

would you have been offered the job you have if you weren't an SE?

Good question. Probably not. I covered VCU years ago. A different athletic hierarchy is in place now and they got to know me as SE, not as a guy on the beat.

so, hopefully it was worth it.