It was with profound, profound interest that I read Jack Shafer's story in Slate about great moments from journalists on the way out of newsrooms (such a rich topic, it managed a part two). A few years ago, I had my big bridge-burning moment, with a letter that I still think about a lot, and which might be some of my best work -- I didn't even have to resort to profanity. What's surprised me most, is how long after the fires have died and been forgotten by everyone else, I still can't make peace with it all.
I should say from the start that I have never, not for a moment, regretted what I did. I wrote the truth, to the correct person, with the precise amount of force the situation warranted. It got me out of a very crumby situation, and perhaps for a few moments forces another human mind to think with a little more depth about a situation and the choices they made. It also forced me not to settle for easy decisions, and though it is the most transient and base aspect of all this, it made me feel better after months of feeling helpless.
But eventually, the very brutal reality set in: it didn't accomplish anything. This effort, this sacrifice, didn't change anything for anyone except me (and my family, for better and for worse). It's a terrible irritant: the story here that resonates the most with real life, alas, is Ron Rosenbaum's famous departure from the Voice ("Who was that?").
While Shafer pokes fun at the idea of the journalist that "works through his anger by killing chipmunks and other small game," I'm not sure there is a lot to laugh at. Journalism, or "Journalism" if you must, is suffering because of those "paper-pushers" and "quacking mallards," though maybe that's easy to forget when you have a steady paycheck from the Washington Post Company. And of course, if you look at the state of late-model, corporate capitalism, it is pretty clear that every line of work is being debased by this new feudalism of a handful of wealthy bosses and a vast army of peons. Only difference, perhaps, is that journalists are usually better writers.
There is a pattern to the lives of journalists. The thing that has dismayed me the most about the business, the point at which the high-minded rhetoric of J-school is in too stark contrast with the reality of the newsroom, is how... well, meek working journalists can be. Oddly, people who have no trouble asking the grieving mother how she "feels," who can shout embarassing questions at a press conference about a congressman's privates, who can shrug off any number of nasty arrows and cheap-shots from Internet trolls, seem unable to constructively engage with the reality of how little control they have over their own careers. And the methods for dealing with it are pathological. In the day to day, it looks like this: Bitch bitch moan complain bitch complain and bitch some more. Some decide to carry on and get by, others quietly slip away (hopefully to something more lucrative), but for whatever reason, I didn't care for either option. And when that happens, things catch fire.
Obviously, I could write about this all day, even though I realized long ago, consciously at least, that madness lies in that direction. Whenever it comes up in conversation, I tend to shrug and make a small joke and try to signal that I've moved on. But really, I haven't as much as I would have liked. And the fact that I'm still mad this made me mad makes me mad.
There is wisdom out there though. I'll refer to Joseph Brodsky's Michigan speech, which I wrote about last month, and which had an interesting take on the angle of forgiving and forgetting:
Great advice. Very hard to live by.
I should say from the start that I have never, not for a moment, regretted what I did. I wrote the truth, to the correct person, with the precise amount of force the situation warranted. It got me out of a very crumby situation, and perhaps for a few moments forces another human mind to think with a little more depth about a situation and the choices they made. It also forced me not to settle for easy decisions, and though it is the most transient and base aspect of all this, it made me feel better after months of feeling helpless.
But eventually, the very brutal reality set in: it didn't accomplish anything. This effort, this sacrifice, didn't change anything for anyone except me (and my family, for better and for worse). It's a terrible irritant: the story here that resonates the most with real life, alas, is Ron Rosenbaum's famous departure from the Voice ("Who was that?").
While Shafer pokes fun at the idea of the journalist that "works through his anger by killing chipmunks and other small game," I'm not sure there is a lot to laugh at. Journalism, or "Journalism" if you must, is suffering because of those "paper-pushers" and "quacking mallards," though maybe that's easy to forget when you have a steady paycheck from the Washington Post Company. And of course, if you look at the state of late-model, corporate capitalism, it is pretty clear that every line of work is being debased by this new feudalism of a handful of wealthy bosses and a vast army of peons. Only difference, perhaps, is that journalists are usually better writers.
There is a pattern to the lives of journalists. The thing that has dismayed me the most about the business, the point at which the high-minded rhetoric of J-school is in too stark contrast with the reality of the newsroom, is how... well, meek working journalists can be. Oddly, people who have no trouble asking the grieving mother how she "feels," who can shout embarassing questions at a press conference about a congressman's privates, who can shrug off any number of nasty arrows and cheap-shots from Internet trolls, seem unable to constructively engage with the reality of how little control they have over their own careers. And the methods for dealing with it are pathological. In the day to day, it looks like this: Bitch bitch moan complain bitch complain and bitch some more. Some decide to carry on and get by, others quietly slip away (hopefully to something more lucrative), but for whatever reason, I didn't care for either option. And when that happens, things catch fire.
Obviously, I could write about this all day, even though I realized long ago, consciously at least, that madness lies in that direction. Whenever it comes up in conversation, I tend to shrug and make a small joke and try to signal that I've moved on. But really, I haven't as much as I would have liked. And the fact that I'm still mad this made me mad makes me mad.
There is wisdom out there though. I'll refer to Joseph Brodsky's Michigan speech, which I wrote about last month, and which had an interesting take on the angle of forgiving and forgetting:
"Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make life miserable for you. There will be a lot of those -- in the official capacity as well as the self-appointed. Suffer them if you can't escape them, but once you have steered clear of them, give them the shortest shrift possible. Above all, try to avoid telling stories about the unjust treatment you received at their hands; avoid it no matter how receptive your audience may be. Tales of this sort extend the existence of your antagonists... By himself, no individual is worth an exercise in injustice (or for that matter, in justice). The ratio of one-to-one doesn't justify the effort: it's the echo that counts. That's the main principle of any oppressor, whether state-sponsored or autodidact. Therefore, steal, or still, the echo, so that you don't allow an event, however unpleasant or momentous, to claim any more time that it took for it to occur."
Great advice. Very hard to live by.
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