News-Record.com

Can you blame young people for leaving the News & Record? Given how you treat your employees, it's a wonder anyone would be willing to work there.

Really, No, you need to let it go.

As an under-30 newspaper journalist who has seen this happen to so many of my friends, I have to say that honestly, a lot of my peers seem to have left papers because they don't really like the whole "working" thing. They often go to either law school (which I can see as a rational choice) or--and this boggles me--journalism grad school. Some of them come out of journalism grad school and don't want to work for newspapers (too much of a daily grind, not enough time to really "go in-depth," they say) so they go to work for "think tanks," nonprofits and the like, but are not practicing daily journalism. I can't say I am always enamored with my job, but I think I would go through withdrawal if I left a newsroom and did not have a daily outlet to get something I tapped out on a keyboard into print. I got into this profession thinking I would be out of it in a couple of years, and somehow I am still here, watching my peers flee!

As someone who has just graduated from the journalism school at UNC-Chapel Hill, this post didn't come as a surprise to me. One thing that I will add is that when you are entering an industry that seems to be a bit on the outs, you have to have a lot of drive to stick with it. Journalism is an interesting and exciting profession, but most journalists have the skills to do other things if they choose to. When everyone around you is saying, "Gosh, why are you going to be a journalist?" you have to be really dead set on wanting to do it to continue. I was lucky enough to be at a school where professors still encourage people to go into the field, but it is easy to see why someone would leave if they weren't positive a newspaper is where they want to be.

Sorry if the truth hurts, Mr. Robinson.

Since you're going to criticize under the cloak of anonymity, could you please comment on this post?

After seeing people come and go in my few journalism years, the job appears to be like any other industry these days. In other fields, switching careers is common. We’ve just caught up to that. And for leaving the biz, I think it’s a pretty honest self-assessment to say, “Eh, this isn’t my bag.” But is that a statement about the profession or it is just an individual choice?

The difference between learning about journalism in a classroom setting and actually doing it is a little jarring.

It's a lot of the little things that don't actually have to do with the reporting and writing that you can't be prepared for -- hostile readers, people who are hostile and haven't even read what they're being hostile about, people who politicize even features or trend stories, people who are completely unreasonable in their outlook on media in general, people who are hostile to you about things other people have written.

You can read about journalists being near the bottom of "most respected careers" lists -- but when you realize through doing the job that you'd actually be TREATED with more respect waiting tables or working retail it can be either daunting or hilarious (depending on how you roll with it).

The pay isn't great and there are sometimes bad hours and bad assignments -- but we pretty much know that going in. All the people I know who have gotten out of the business have done so because they don't want to put up with all of the extra nonsense or because it has become so hard to get and keep jobs in journalism that are both interesting and will allow you to sleep indoors and eat.

Schonberg's right -- you've got to be dead set on it, even on days when the grass seems greener elsewhere.

Interesting discussion, I do say.

"No N&R Fan," I can't speak for anyone else leaving the paper, but my decision has nothing to do with how the News & Record treated me (and continues to treat me for a few more weeks).

Several of the things JR wrote in his post do, however, ring true. Most of the metro papers that I once strived to work for have become extremely difficult to get jobs at because of shrinking newsrooms. And my going back to school in a way goes to the issue of long-term security; although I see it as adding more skills that can keep me afloat in multiple fields rather than giving me any kind of actual job security.

I reject the idea that I'm getting out altogether though. My plan is to work on legal issues facing news organizations and I see my decision as changing my role in the news industry more than abdicating it. True, I won't be practicing journalism. But hopefully I'll be helping keep the practice of journalism alive.