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On the angst of American journalists (2019)

scholars-stage.org

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Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#31

Post by paulpauper »

Academia produces thousands and thousands of adjuncts working far below the average American wage. To get to that stage you must spend five to eight years laboring as a graduate student, again working under the average wage. Only a fraction of those who go through this experience end up securing a stable university job because of it.

Maybe 10+ years ago the situation was so bleak, not nowadays you see tons of otherwise no-name academics, of all areas whether it's science , math, sociology, political science, or economics, carving out niches online, such as substacks, twitter, podcasts, YouTube lectures (like 3blue 1 brown), selling books on Amazon, fundraising, etc. It's not like your options are only limited to teaching at a university. One of the hidden benefits of academia , even if the pay sucks, is you get branding power, which you typically do not see with other professions. Noah Smith, for example, was something of a failed academic but now runs a hugely popular econ Substack blog.

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#32

Post by paulpauper »

caslon wrote: post #11

Does this seem suspect to anyone else? It's hard to believe an author trying to instill in you the idea that everything is fine, actually, when stuff is pretty obviously not actually fine. My neighbors are not well off. I am not well off. The people I know are mostly below or hovering around the federal poverty guideline. Far from making great sums, and it's been this way for a long time. Are we sure the author isn't…

How would you know. did you ring the doorbell and as "hey, are you guys well off?" What does it mean to be well off anyway? Sometimes people who save a lot of money appear poorer than they are.

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#33

Post by [deleted] »

paulpauper wrote: post #31

Academia produces thousands and thousands of adjuncts working far below the average American wage. To get to that stage you must spend five to eight years laboring as a graduate student, again working under the average wage. Only a fraction of those who go through this experience end up securing a stable university job because of it. Maybe 10+ years ago the situation was so bleak, not nowadays you see tons of otherwi…

[deleted]

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#34

Post by [deleted] »

woevdbz wrote: post #29

Journalism is this weird profession where its individual members have very little personal power and clout, because doing good research and writing is not a huge barrier to entry. Most are just freelance cogs in a big capitalistic machine that isn't doing very well by capitalist standards. But collectively they wield immense power to set the narrative that essentially drives democracy. I suspect this encourages pack…

[deleted]

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#35

Post by [deleted] »

refurb wrote: post #25

Outrage sells. The National Enquirer's entire business model has used this for the past 50+ years. The big difference is that the major news centers have copied that model and the author's thesis that it's a response to the move online makes sense. But there is something about online discourse that attracts extreme opinions like mice to cheese. This really dawned on me when I checked out the subreddit r/decaf for peo…

[deleted]

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#36

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #33
paulpauper wrote: post #31

Academia produces thousands and thousands of adjuncts working far below the average American wage. To get to that stage you must spend five to eight years laboring as a graduate student, again working under the average wage. Only a fraction of those who go through this experience end up securing a stable university job because of it. Maybe 10+ years ago the situation was so bleak, not nowadays you see tons of otherwi…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#37

Post by paulpauper »

woevdbz wrote: post #29

Journalism is this weird profession where its individual members have very little personal power and clout, because doing good research and writing is not a huge barrier to entry. Most are just freelance cogs in a big capitalistic machine that isn't doing very well by capitalist standards. But collectively they wield immense power to set the narrative that essentially drives democracy. I suspect this encourages pack…

because doing good research and writing is not a huge barrier to entry.

it's a big barrier when one considers the vast majority of Americans, even those with degrees, cannot do either well.

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#38

Post by heisenbit »

The main idea of the article is tone of the national conversation is biased by people who are frustrated:

> These are also the people who drive the national conversation on twitter. Academics, journalists, policy hands, and lawyers.[2] The people who form the narratives that we understand our country have been frustrated by fate. They live uncertain, precarious lives; even the most successful and secure are surrounded by defeated legions. Each old college friend is a reminder of what they could have been or might soon be. They are more likely to be stressed by circumstance. Do you think that stress does not carry over into their perceptions of the country writ large?

At least for me my social media activity ramps up a bit when not so happy.

Re: On the angst of American journalists (2019)

#39

Post by chaps »

mantas wrote: post #23
t-3 wrote: post #13

For a brief period, journalism was a respected professional-class career. Social media and streaming video killed that, so it's back to muckraking. I have confidence that eventually new economic models will emerge that allow writers to better meet the demand for "real" journalism, but figuring that out will take time and more societal adjustment to technology.

There's already a model for this. Crowd-sourced journalists via Patreon etc. Even in my small country (~3mio pop), people manage to make a cushy living on this. E.g. covering iffy cases of corruption and neglect that ain't reported much (if at all) on mainstream media. In many cases because media if afraid to loose advertisement money from related business structures.

Hah! No way would that work in any industry-changing way. Maybe some journalists here and there make that work, but it's not a model that scales to many, and it would be unbalanced in a way that promotes the already promoted while leaving those just starting out to traditional freelancing of 200 (maybe) per-piece until they build enough reputation to get patreon followers. In other words -- the same system we have now.
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