Barbara Ehrenreich: Welcome to a Dying Industry, J-School Grads

I'm proud of you for standing up and saying this. It needed to be said. We can't afford to do without professional journalists. I hold out hope that some genius will figure out a viable revenue model for compensating journalists for their valuable work on behalf of our long-suffering democracy. When the last journalist dies, the beacon of freedom will flicker and die out as well. God bless and god speed to you and yours.

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free from corporate/shadow gov't agenda, integrity, balance and courage will languish.

Just ask Judy Miller and her editors at the NYtimes, they brought lying to new level.

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She speaks the truth, and unlike Emily Dickinson, she gives it to us straight up, no chaser. We need more like her.

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of the working class.

There is little moral authority in politics these days, only manipulation to keep ill-gotten gains and further punish the most vulnerable.

However, the people are not blind, but angry and ready to demand some justice.

What, I wonder, were those journalism students taught about the history and practice of incorporation?

Were they taught that the first royal charter was granted by William the Conquerer in 1067 to the City of London, making it independent of government control?

Were they taught that a corporation is a monarchical device which ensures that power and protection can be reserved for those at the top?

Were they taught that corporations can legally buy more and more power through their campaign contributions?

Were they taught that, thanks to corporate power, politicians have become little more than front men/women for CEOs?

Were they taught that every mess we are in today can be traced to the hierarchical nature of the corporation?

At least they have been told that their sense of entitlement was wrong, wrong, wrong.

I am optimistic. When illusions go, realities can be addressed.

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a good book, "nickel and dimed", about the difficulty of living employed in a minimum-wage job. I read it because it was part of the curriculum in my daughter's honors English class; it was an excellent, if somewhat frightening, tale of what many face every day. good journalists reveal truths that we might otherwise not know. long may they thrive!

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This is a stand up and shout:YES! speech. Journalism is not about the money, fancy dinners and material gain, it is about the truth, getting it and getting it out there. It is the same for writers of novels--They write because they have to, it is in their blood and this is more true of journalists for often their very lives are on the line. I have followed this woman for years for she has always told it like it is. Woodward is an example of someone who used to be a journalist and became a hack. The latter are all over the networks now but have nothing to say. We must not give up being heard. Great article from a great journalist.

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So now you work for nearly nothing or even for free. Not a good plan.

You make nothing. You editorialize on everything. Those that can't do speak about it.

Do something useful. The words spilling from your head are of almost no value to anyone but yourself.

It's the end of the line for the gatekeepers (journalists).

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It was a good six year run but it got so that I could not keep outrunning the computer that was making be obsolete.

AND AT THAT TIME THERE WERE NO BENEFITS FOR US!
NONE WHATSOEVER.

And now, soon, there may be NO NEWSPAPERS at all.

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...collapsing in 9 and 11 seconds.

-- That's a funny coincidence I never noticed before; and directly from the pages of the NIST report.

Oh, sorry, I forgot. That topic is out-of-bounds, especially for a journalist building, or hoping to maintain, a career.

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“The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.”
— William Colby, former Director of the CIA.

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what a slap in the face to democracy as Alternet pledges their allegiance to exactly 2% of the population


and you wonder why this country is in a shit hole?


the filter by which TRUTH is subverted leads directly to Israel's door and their enablers on this website.

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How many of the typical college degree areas actually have adequate career opportunities available? I would be willing to bet that we are pumping out far more college graduates than are needed in our ever decreasing well-paying career opportunities.

The prevailing wisdom is that you can't be financially successful without a college degree. Many people are finding that they can't be financially successful even with a college degree. Add to that the unreal cost of student loans. It's no surprise that many college graduates start deep in a financial hole and many never get out.

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I recall a long ago interview with Rod Serling who said that students should not take writing classes or workshops. "A writer doesn't write about writing. A writer writes about things. Learn about things," he advised. It is the advice I would offer to professional journalists (whatever that means) as well. Most journalists only offer stale platitudes and gee-whiz observations about things that they understand only in the most superficial way.

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...big fan of her work. But as a journalist who spent 20 years at small-town newspapers, I think it should be pointed out that for most of us, it has always been about being "working class."

Her chiding of journalists as out-of-touch elites with an abiding sense of entitlement stings a bit to those of us who have never had such luxuries as dependent health care, much less entertained the notion of being wined and dined at three-star New York restaurants.

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Reading this article, I am thinking of two great tv shows of the 70's: "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" starring Darrin McGavin, and "Lou Grant", starring Ed Asner. "Night Stalker" was about a gutsy obnoxious news reporter. "Lou Grant" was about a newspaper and the drama of being courageous in reporting stories and getting to the truth ("Lou Grant" won 13 Emmy Awards). Both emphasized the need for courageous reporters, and the hard work but honor that came with the job.

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I was a reporter and editor for many years, decades ago when politicians lived in fear that the local paper -- or, God forbid, a TV station or network -- would do a negative story on them.
Today politicians can and do thumb their noses at journalists with impunity. Why? Because technological and social changes have spayed and neutered the news industry. Audiences for most news stories have shrunk drastically. The news media, having merged with entertainment media, have lost much of their credibility. The upshot is that today Woodward and Bernstein would be lucky to get the Watergate break-in into the Local Briefs, much less front-page treatment. And chances are that a call from the White House would kill the story before it ever saw daylight.
This was a stirring speech to Berkeley's journalism grads, but it's straight out of a Frank Capra movie. Forget crusades, young grads. Accept that we live in a corporate oligarchy where media drones have to take what crumbs they can get. If you're lucky, you might find a job that provides medical and dental coverage. But check your ethics at the door.

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I see journalism and its popularity as going in cycles. It's at a low point, now due to a transition from paper to electronic presentation. As long as some of us are CURIOUS, and want to know what's going on about us, some form of journalism will be around. Another factor is the homogenization of the popular media due to the failure of our government to regulate crooks like murdoch and his ilk. If this doesn't change soon, a whole generation of people could be as clueless as a Paris Hilton. This would be good for the powers that be, but bad for the rest of us.

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As our economy has been moving away from the concept of making things, the work ethic of the working class has been overshadowed by the belief in painless wealth which is then conflated with the notion of "value". Barbara Ehrenreich reminds us that there is no value that does not derive from labor.

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The monopoly local papers are mostly bought up by chains owned by wingnut-leaners. They are often the tyrant's friend and the people's foe. The big TV networks are owned by nuclear GE, nuclear Westinghouse and then there's Disney.

What you really need to do is to carve your own business framework out of little or nothing, with a reasonable set of protections and firewalls from the corruption that you challenge. The world is still looking for someone to expose corruptions large and small.

You cry, "We're not businesspeople! We hate business!" Hmmm, interesting quandary. I wonder how you will solve it?

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I'd like to think I could work for The Alternet as a headline writer. Specifically, the gray-box subheads that uniformly seem to misrepresent what its writers are actually trying to say. I mean a thousand monkeys working on a thousand typewriters would turn out more accurate subheads than you guys. To wit:

Drop your sense of entitlement, Ehrenreich tells a graduating class of media makers, journalists are now "part of the working class."

Um, did you even read the peice? Journalists, as Ehrenreich succinctly points out, have always been part of the working class. Her example of getting $10 a word for TIME was not supposed to be representative.

Here's what she actually said:

Which brings me back to the subject of journalism as a profession. We are not part of an elite. We are part of the working class, which is exactly how journalists have seen themselves through most of American history -- as working stiffs

My hours have been cut back at my newspaper job, so I'd love to make some part-time dough doing the work your editors are supposed to be doing.

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I understand that journalists are worried about their careers and I don't blame them, anymore than I blame any other labor force. But aren't they compounding the issue by continually harping on it, much like what happened to the housing market, when things were fine but dropping a bit (normal), until the media struck fear in the hearts of all with the made-up "HOUSING CRISIS 2007" and suddenly buyers were too freaked to buy? Why are we so quick to bring bad luck upon ourselves, just for a few good headlines?

Whenever TV news and papers come up with a catchy name and graphic for something, you know we've overdone it. Please, just give us the freaking facts (and no more weather teases. Is it going to rain- yes or no, it's that simple.) Newspapers and TV alike have gone Entertainment Tonight with their news; they're big with the dog and pony show, but there's no substance. And they looove to create fear, because as we all know, fear sells (9-11 anyone?) All those fearmongers left over from Bush&CheneyLand live for fear and terror, real or imagined. If we keep writing like it's already happened, it will happen, as simple as that. Many people, media owners included, can't differentiate between reading "this could happen" and "this has already happened", so even if it's unsubstantiated gossip, they take it as gospel truth.

Luckily, we will always need jounalists, no matter what the computer nerds think. Where do you think your news websites are stealing their news stories from? From real honest to goodness journalists who get out there and research and write the facts as they should be. I love my newspaper- and I want to read it at home with my breakfast in peace, not online at some stupid coffee shop so others can see how cool I am. I think only one house on our block doesn't get the paper, and he's a out of state owner. Many also get our local town paper. I could be predjudiced because I am a writer myself, but I need my morning paper, even if it is mainly for the comics.

Thanks Barbara, for yet another great read. Hurry up with another book- we love you out here!!!

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I have a suggestion for you, if you care to take me up on it. Why don't you contact some of those students you gave that eloquent speech too, and ask them if they would care to join you in reporting on the greatest untold story of the last century. Namely, exposing the real truth of what happened on 9/11. A lot of us here on Alternet have been waiting for one brave Journalist to take the lead on this huge story, but so far no one's had the guts or the inclination to do so. I can't think of a better way for these Journalism Graduates to get their feet wet.

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The quality of the writing is what I would expect from high school kids. The quality of the editing is less than I would expect in a high school paper.

The "reporters" take news releases as truth and never ask the important questions. The police in Washington State only shoot nice people. Every issue of the paper must major in animal welfare - abused dogs, cats, and horses. For news I read the Washington (DC) Post.

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Way back around 1967 when I was graduating from high school my plan was to be a journalist. At that time all the guidance books said not to even bother going to college, journalism was strictly a blue collar job. Not that there was anything beside the Columbia GRADUATE School of Journalism. Undergraduate programs didn't really exist.

This whole journalist as elitist thing never was good for journalism or for attracting the "right" kind of journalist. When you're pulling down big $$$ it's hard to put that in jeopardy. When it's on $ it's much easier.

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I was one of those who wanted to be a journalist starting back when I was in high school.

And then the principal of my school showed up with the cops to confiscate every copy of the high school newspaper which happened to have an article in it which the principal disagreed with.

That was my first lesson on America's "free press" and the "freedom of expression."

By the time I was a junior in college I had finally given up on the sophomoric idea that you could cover "real" issues in the mainstream press. I had learned that what passes for a "free" mainstream press in America is in fact nothing more than the mouth piece of corporate America and our secret government.

I changed my major, and I'm glad I did.

Ever since, I have been explaining to would be journalism majors that the mainstream press is little more than entertainment and right-wing propaganda: "So if you want to be a journalist, go into it with your eyes wide open. Maybe you would be happier writing books, doing documentaries or teaching history."

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Journalists have always been part of the working class. And the booming '90s were nothing of the sort with the beginning of mass consolidation of the industry where big media companies ate smaller companies, and huge companies ate them, etc. At the apex of the .com boom I was a photojournalist and was laid-off. Though it didn't feel like it at the time, they did me a huge favor, and the money I got as severance I used to get my MLS and became a librarian. I've been a librarian now for almost a decade and love it... Right now we're booming!

Anyway, I make a decent wage now, a livable wage unlike when I was a journalist and got nearly minimum wage (during boom time) while working in the New York Metro Area, one of the places with the highest costs of living in America. It was really a pleasure to be routinely visiting celebrity golf and tennis matches, polo grounds, and multi-million dollar estates while drawing my meager salary let me tell you.

I knew I had to get out of the business though well before I was laid-off when we killed a story about a local pharmacy that was buying black market RX but selling them as the real deal. We killed the story (that ran on 20/20 BTW) because said pharmacy was one of our biggest advertisers... Think about that. Now you know why "the media" is cynical. Anyone put in that position would be cynical.

I'm truly sorry that all of my friends who were "lucky" enough to stay in the biz are going the way of the dodo but in the end, I believe it will be better for them, and the Country as the Internet makes journalism more of the 4th Estate than dead trees ever did.

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Back in the 70's, media did at least cover one common reality, unlike now, when a person can get their whole notion of the world around them from propaganda outlets like Fox, ABC, and the far-right media empires like Clear Channel, and never know they're not getting the same news as their neighbors.

But if it involved women, it was by definition not news, or was relegated to what today are called "Lifestyle" sections, but back then were simply called "the women's page". Barbara Ehrenreich in those days was in the unfortunate position of having some important analyses of women's history and issues to voice, and no outlet in the world to speak them in ( even Ms magazine was the fruit of the feminist movement, not the root, and thus came pretty late in the game).

Ehrenreich became a respected part of the collective conversation by publishing pamphlets, just like Tom Paine and other revolutionaries. I still have a few from my own early days -- I'd never heard a voice like hers, and she had a huge impact on me. I bet she didn't make a nickel from those funny little booklets, but by God, she made her ideas heard. She has continued to shoehorn unpopular ideas into the dialogue, and is exactly the right person to speak to the future of journalism.

I do worry, though, about the disappearance of a shared factual reality as the newspaper becomes a dying breed. I wrote to a politico friend of mine 5 or 6 years ago that Martin Luther King could arise today, and two-thirds of Americans would never hear about him. The rise of open media on-line is a wonderful thing, but how can we function as an electorate when we're all just reading/hearing what echoes our own beliefs?

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Don’t misunderstand; I have the greatest respect for Barbara Ehrenreich, both for her reportorial talent and her oft-demonstrated skill at dodging the real and metaphorical bullets of ruling-class rage sufficiently well to ensure herself a steady paycheck. But as a once-promising, formerly award-winning and now thoroughly blacklisted journalist -- 30 years of staff jobs ranging from reporter/photographer to editor-in-chief (this during a half-century squandered in efforts to inform the insensate) -- I cannot but regard Ms. Ehrenreich’s graduation speech as an epic-length oxymoron. Here are five reasons why:

(1)--Ms. Ehrenreich’s core argument is a Big Lie. The degree she cites as a “license to fight” is in fact its antithesis: you don’t get the money to attend the University of California’s Graduate School of Journalism -- or any graduate school in any field -- without 100-percent approval by the ruling class. This means you’re either ruling-class yourself, or such a toady there’s no risk you’ll betray your masters’ interests. The only quality asserted by such a degree is dependable Obedience; the only journalistic right licensed thereby is to follow the leadership of Josef Goebbels.

(2)--As Ms. Ehrenreich surely knows, U.S. journalists were once mostly blue-collar people, and the American Newspaper Guild once gave us the requisite union muscle. But the monopolists methodically purged us all, replacing us with corporate-minded drones from country-club families, which also broke the Guild. As a former colleague said, “one of the reasons I went into journalism was newsroom solidarity: I didn’t want to have to deal with the backstabbing and brown-nosing of the typical corporate office. But now, today, the newsroom is the original Corporate Office from Hell.” (Maybe one reason Ms. Ehrenreich omits this true history is that daily newspapers were one of the favorite battlefields of the U.S. feminist movement, which because of its bourgeois origins -- and in breathtaking contrast to its sister movements everywhere else on this planet -- was as venomously anti-union as any Republican caucus.)

(3)--Ms. Ehrenreich’s assertion the graduate-school graduates “are not part of an elite” is reminiscent of pre-Revolutionary France, where Marie Antoinette and her high-born companions whiled away their hours romping with lambs and pretending to be shepherds.

(4)--If any of the elite Ms. Ehrenreich addressed do happen to develop a “working class” consciousness, they will be sacked and blacklisted accordingly -- unless of course they find some way to sell themselves to the ruling class, for example like Ms. Ehrenreich herself -- her radicalism tolerated merely to suggest the First Amendment still has some relevance. Again, surely Ms. Ehrenreich knows this, just as she surely understands that in today’s United States, not only government and governance at all levels but the entire structure of society serves but one purpose: the propagation of capitalism -- that is, the absolute protection of the ruling class and the total subjugation of all the rest of us.

(5)--Ms. Ehrenreich’s “we will not be stopped” is cheerleading reductio ad absurdum. There is no “we” of journalistic solidarity -- breaking the Guild ended that forever -- and “guerilla journalism” is a myth: the financial barriers to Internet expression guarantee that those of us condemned to euthanasia by abandonment -- elderly, disabled, chronically poor -- are permanently silenced. Meanwhile there is no longer any power on earth capable of slaying the tyrannosaur of capitalism -- the reason “change we can believe in” was never more than an invitation to increasingly obvious betrayal. Presumably Ms. Ehrenreich will eventually wake up: she is far too intelligent to remain a cheerleader of denial.

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Barbara Ehrenreich's J-School address reminded me of long-ago lectures in my journalism courses which told us how journalism fitted into our form of democracy.

We were told that Journalism is "the fourth estate", and included in the First Amendment of the US Bill of Rights, because the system of checks and balances in our constitution was considered weak by our founding fathers, if the daily interactions of Executive, Judicial, and Congressional branches of our government were not exposed by a vigorous free press.

It might be a time to review which past US laws and customs kept our sources of news safe from forces of news monopoly, and reinstate them, if we intend to continue with our form of government.

The last eight years have proven that our country needs our work, free of national and international news monopolies.

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