tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post110065015291340015..comments2023-10-23T09:10:21.726-07:00Comments on Darwin's California Cat Presents Last Days of My Career as a College Professor: It Was Like the Charge of the Light Brigade Except with a Happy Ending....J.Michael Robertsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-11894254963603351722007-10-03T09:01:00.000-07:002007-10-03T09:01:00.000-07:00I have not communicated with Ms. Rock these 25 yea...I have not communicated with Ms. Rock these 25 years. I would like to think that she is now a fine tiny old lady who dyes her hair.....J.Michael Robertsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-58807486000816358832007-10-02T23:26:00.000-07:002007-10-02T23:26:00.000-07:00I would love to be able to email Maxine Rock. I ha...I would love to be able to email Maxine Rock. I had her as a magazine professor at Georgia State a long time ago. Anyway you could put me in touch with her?<BR/><BR/>Ellen (Bernstein) Braunstein<BR/>www.courtship-stories.com<BR/><BR/>ellen@courtship-stories.comEllen Braunsteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18040352917586508625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-1101250389658560092004-11-23T14:53:00.000-08:002004-11-23T14:53:00.000-08:00What was wrong with Cathy Shen?What was wrong with Cathy Shen?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-1100909761997875072004-11-19T16:16:00.000-08:002004-11-19T16:16:00.000-08:00Well, I can't exactly disagree. I have no doubt th...Well, I can't exactly disagree. I have no doubt there are brave, heedless, hard-drinking journalist types out there still. But do many if any of them still work at newspapers or magazines? Are they all in their rumpus rooms doing blogs? I am sad sad sad that you are not working somewhere that appreciates your worth and uses it to their advantage. The only advice I have isn't really useful, and that would be to do the proverbial nationwide search for the Best Darn Job you can find in the middle of nowhere. You would counter that those newspapers are unlikely to be better in any of the ways that matter to you, and your domestic arrangements won't allow it anyhow. Sigh. My journalism experience was aberrant, working for a guy whose nickname was Che -- this is what we call a true fact -- and then at one of the craziest newspapers in the U.S. at the tail end of its craziness. I wish I had something smarter to say. My encouragement must be general. Find something you want to write about and figure out a way to write about it. But if the figuring it out involves drug sales or robbing liquor stores, I withdraw the advice. (That advice didn't last long.) Maybe you should start making book proposals??....J.Michael Robertsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-1100909700803768632004-11-19T16:15:00.000-08:002004-11-19T16:15:00.000-08:00Sigh.
How I remember that story so very well fro...Sigh.<br /> <br />How I remember that story so very well from one of the many reporting classes I took with you at USF (still convinced this man's sweet demeanor must mean he grades easily...oh how wrong I was). It was a great story, the story that Bay Guardians, SF Weeklys, and Mother Jones' rally young reporters with at all-day conferences in hotels that never lead to connections, never lead to jobs, never lead to internships.<br /> <br />I thought: and that's why I want to be a journalist. I want to be a bad-ass, I want to have gumption, convictions, opinions, and balls. <br /> <br />Sadly, journalism has changed. Most journalists I know run with their tails between their legs at the slightest hint of dissent for fear of the firing ax, and with good reason, there are a billion eager, bright-eyed reporters shoving and clawing to take your place. Journalism no longer cares about losing a *good* reporter because there are thousands of mediocre, complacent ones to take your place.<br /> <br />I stood my ground once. Quit a job on the spot. Left all my things there because I was tired of all the bullshit. I thought, this is what sets me apart, this is why I am going to show them someday, show them all! And now I find myself at the will of the freelance market. Auditioning like a performer on Broadway for the smallest bit of print, still smiling stupidly while one magazine asks to see my clips yet again for a story that's been in negotiation for three months, all too happy to get paid three to four months after a story has been published. Freelancing for one of my old rags for a pittance of pay, pissed that I need them, but resolute that damnit if they every off me my old job back I'll still say fuck'em. Gosh, I hope I say that...but there is always health insurance. <br /> <br />Journalists are no longer the free-spirited, seat-of-their-pants heroes we learned about in school. If you don't get your masters from Berkeley, kiss your bad-ass good-bye. It's about degrees and sophisticated vocabulary. Frankly, it's stuck-up, and the radical free-press is just as bad, snooty in the exact same way, just in a way that seems more edgy. <br /> <br />Am I bitter? Of course! I know I'm good, damn good. I'm one of the best there is. I know I can still win, but the course is a lot harder to navigate. Editors like Larry are almost non-existent. They cower, they IM, they stay holed up in offices, hoping no one asks them to read any copy and that the copy editor can handle any great needs from their end. It's a lazy field these days. Who knows, maybe all the reporters will eventually be replaced by Google. Fast and cheap. That's what counts. <br /> <br />Maybe it can get better, but it's hard to say. Maybe journalism is dead. Is it? I don't know, I hope not, b/c then I'd have to go back to school...damn.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-1100909590183461892004-11-19T16:13:00.000-08:002004-11-19T16:13:00.000-08:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.....J.Michael Robertsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15748774253168313345noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7158350.post-1100799630727010552004-11-18T09:40:00.000-08:002004-11-18T09:40:00.000-08:00That is fascinating. It reminds me of my first que...That is fascinating. It reminds me of my first question when next we are sipping a quiet cabernet and gazing at something: "Michael, can you tell me more about what it was like at Atlanta Magazine in those days?" <br />Which reminds me, wasn't there a thinly veiled novel about those very days<br />at that very magazine? A woman wrote it, as I recall -- a love story, sort-of.<br />More of a love-hate actually, as it concerned journalism.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com