Is writing the new basketweaving?
This Sunday's Washington Post had three good articles about the current state of journalism.
Under weight of its mistakes, newspaper industry staggers (story by media critic Howard Kurtz)
Bloggers can't fill the gap left by shrinking press corps (by columnist Marc Fisher)
In Baltimore, no one left to press the police (essay by the producer of HBO's "The Wire")
The last one especially should bring every thinking American's eyes to a full stop:
Half-truths, obfuscations and apparent deceit -- these are the wages of a world in which newspapers, their staffs eviscerated, no longer battle at the frontiers of public information. And in a city where officials routinely plead with citizens to trust the police, where witnesses have for years been vulnerable to retaliatory violence, we now have a once-proud department's officers hiding behind anonymity that is not only arguably illegal under existing public information laws, but hypocritical as well.
However, for all the recent moaning about the shrinking of the newspaper business, something else has been bothering me about writing, and today I stumbled upon the essay that crystallized that something into clear, cold text. From Romenesko, I jumped to a column that asks: Is writing for the rich?
It’s not obvious how young writers without accommodating, well-to-do parents or a trust from gramps make it these days. Surely they can’t spend a year or two blogging without pay until an audience evolves to nurture them. They’ll starve. Meantime, freelance rates for non-fluff magazine writing have barely risen in the past 15 years. And the chances of getting a job at a quality newspaper or a serious magazine are fast approaching zero.
There are exceptions, I know. There always are. But on the whole, the writing game seems likely to become even more a province of the upper middle class and flat-out wealthy than it is already. The offspring of the affluent, branded college degrees in hand, can afford to give it a go. But anyone hailing from more hardscrabble environs may find it too difficult to get traction before succumbing to the dismal economics of it all.
And, for me, that's like a cold punch to the gut. I write non-fiction, therefore I am. That's just what I always wanted to be doing. (Well, OK, except for those few years when I tried to become an astrophysicist. And even the professors who refused to admit me to Ph.D. candidacy said that I did an excellent job of writing answers to non-mathematical essay questions.)
Writing is my skill. My stock in trade. It's the only thing that sets me apart from Wal-Mart cashiers. I couldn't get hired anymore for being good with spelling and grammar-checking. That's built into the computer programs nowadays. I may have a bad case of undiagnosed ADD and be writing this blog stuff when I should be finishing up the first draft of a technical article, but dammit, I'm still a writer and eventually I get it done.
But will it matter much anymore? Will I still be able to do this for the next 18 years until I reach "full retirement age"? Not everybody who writes for this magazine gets paid for it. Some article authors are scientists who write about their fields out of the goodness of their hearts. So why should I get paid when we could be rustling up a few more freebies who won't demand health insurance?
And if I don't write, what then? I really don't have any white-collar skills that can't be outsourced to Third World countries. "Do what you love to do." As if reading books, playing quarter-notes on an obscure musical instrument, and dabbling in medieval crafts would bring any kind of payment whatsoever in one of the world's most expensive 21st-century cities.
Ah, well, back to that first draft....
Under weight of its mistakes, newspaper industry staggers (story by media critic Howard Kurtz)
Bloggers can't fill the gap left by shrinking press corps (by columnist Marc Fisher)
In Baltimore, no one left to press the police (essay by the producer of HBO's "The Wire")
The last one especially should bring every thinking American's eyes to a full stop:
Half-truths, obfuscations and apparent deceit -- these are the wages of a world in which newspapers, their staffs eviscerated, no longer battle at the frontiers of public information. And in a city where officials routinely plead with citizens to trust the police, where witnesses have for years been vulnerable to retaliatory violence, we now have a once-proud department's officers hiding behind anonymity that is not only arguably illegal under existing public information laws, but hypocritical as well.
However, for all the recent moaning about the shrinking of the newspaper business, something else has been bothering me about writing, and today I stumbled upon the essay that crystallized that something into clear, cold text. From Romenesko, I jumped to a column that asks: Is writing for the rich?
It’s not obvious how young writers without accommodating, well-to-do parents or a trust from gramps make it these days. Surely they can’t spend a year or two blogging without pay until an audience evolves to nurture them. They’ll starve. Meantime, freelance rates for non-fluff magazine writing have barely risen in the past 15 years. And the chances of getting a job at a quality newspaper or a serious magazine are fast approaching zero.
There are exceptions, I know. There always are. But on the whole, the writing game seems likely to become even more a province of the upper middle class and flat-out wealthy than it is already. The offspring of the affluent, branded college degrees in hand, can afford to give it a go. But anyone hailing from more hardscrabble environs may find it too difficult to get traction before succumbing to the dismal economics of it all.
And, for me, that's like a cold punch to the gut. I write non-fiction, therefore I am. That's just what I always wanted to be doing. (Well, OK, except for those few years when I tried to become an astrophysicist. And even the professors who refused to admit me to Ph.D. candidacy said that I did an excellent job of writing answers to non-mathematical essay questions.)
Writing is my skill. My stock in trade. It's the only thing that sets me apart from Wal-Mart cashiers. I couldn't get hired anymore for being good with spelling and grammar-checking. That's built into the computer programs nowadays. I may have a bad case of undiagnosed ADD and be writing this blog stuff when I should be finishing up the first draft of a technical article, but dammit, I'm still a writer and eventually I get it done.
But will it matter much anymore? Will I still be able to do this for the next 18 years until I reach "full retirement age"? Not everybody who writes for this magazine gets paid for it. Some article authors are scientists who write about their fields out of the goodness of their hearts. So why should I get paid when we could be rustling up a few more freebies who won't demand health insurance?
And if I don't write, what then? I really don't have any white-collar skills that can't be outsourced to Third World countries. "Do what you love to do." As if reading books, playing quarter-notes on an obscure musical instrument, and dabbling in medieval crafts would bring any kind of payment whatsoever in one of the world's most expensive 21st-century cities.
Ah, well, back to that first draft....