Why I left news

I think this is a recent phenomenon. A friend who works in journalism said that the answer to "why do you want to be a journalist?" used to be "because I want to report the truth." At one point the answer changed to "because I want to change the world." The dividing point? Watergate.

Also, the attraction of journalism as a place for the kids of rich families eventually drove out everyone who used the job to support themselves.

I always had a couple side stories I was working on that would take a week or so, and now and then I'd go out to do a business profile, which tended to be something of an advertisement for the business in question. I'd interview the owner or president, look around the place, talk to a few employees. But at least it was something like journalism. But with the intense deadline pressure during my regular work day, I mainly did the work for these in the morning on my own time.

There were some fun times though. There was the night when our hometown team won the Superbowl, and all the reporters stayed late watching the results come in. That night I drove through streets packed with celebrating people to get photos taken by our man on the scene from the AP office across town. Election nights were great too, with free food in the conference room and the whole staff feverishly compiling results until the front page closed at midnight.

And there was a sense of power too. All I had to do was say "I'm a reporter for the XYZ Times," and the company president or the head staffer in the Congressman's office would be eager to talk to me.

Thirty years ago was supposed to be the glory days of print journalism, but already papers were closing and reporters losing their jobs. A running joke in the newsroom underscored our basic anxiety about the future: "What's a journalist? A reporter looking for work."

I lost my job after my mentor, the managing editor who shepherded me through the political minefield of the editorial staff, got sick and took a six-month leave of absence, leaving me at the mercy of the ambitious deputy managing editor.

One day the business editor, my immediate boss, called me into his office and told me I was being transferred to a sister publication of tiny circulation in another town, but that was actually a lie. The truth became apparent when I was called before the deputy managing editor. He actually ran the newspaper since the editor-in-chief was a figurehead hired for his name alone. The managing editor who had mentored me was long gone. "How does it feel to be fired?" were the first words he said. I gathered my stuff and walked out. I went back to school for a grad degree and never looked back.

YC has even funded a number of startups some of which have folded in spectacular style.

As for micropayments & kickstarter there is/was http://spot.us/ which was purchased by Minnesota Public Radio and has been neglected a bit.

Just as the author pointed out, he loved his job at first, then it became demanding and he went through several rounds of burnout and then saw how the news cycle was changing and how politically slanted every story he had to write was.

He quit after 6 years and now just writes ad copy for a large marketing firm. He says its a lot less stressful and he also stopped reading the news since he "knows" how slanted and inaccurate the stores you read now are.

He still has some fascinating stories though. . .

Too bad this industry and good reporting died a long time ago.

There had been rumors going around the newsroom that something was going to happen, and I knew I was not one of his favorites, so the day before it happened, I asked my boss, the business editor, if I was doing OK. He said I was doing fine. "I especially like the way you've taken over supervising the layout," he said. He was really embarrassed when he called me in the next day, and I think that's why he came up the the story that I was being transferred. I think it was wishful thinking on his part, or he had pushed for a transfer when they told him, and they said "maybe."