I'm a newspaper editor. I've been at it professionally for 15 years. Enough is enough. Enough was enough ten years ago, I was just young and full of energy then. I'm not quitting my job, at least not right away, but I've been looking into other options.
One of them is management within Barnes & Noble. I don't know how much money can be made as a store manager or regional manager, and it's been a long time since I've worked retail, but I figure there's got to be less daily stress than there is working at a newspaper.
Another place I've been considering is the world of education. I've noticed several communications positions open at various universities, and I'm thinking that might have potential.
My perfect, best option would be for some publisher to decide to buy my current novel, give me a great big and fat check for it. Then I could write other novels. But that doesn't seem likely.
4 comments:
You should explore the glories of not being a manager. All the world's a much nicer place when you're only responsible for your own stupid errors and not everyone else's. Plus there's that lovely overtime pay.
Smaller paycheck, perhaps, but earning more per hour.
Or just be glad you don't work at the Akron paper.
Um ... no, I don't think it's just life as a manager. And it's not just how things at work affect me. I'm tired of seeing college-educated people treated like garbage and paid garbage. I'm tired of seeing older professionals work 40 or more years just so they can maybe make a decent living wage. I'm tired of journalists having to give up their entire lives, and their superiors don't appreciate it, the advertising customers don't appreciate it, and even the customers more and more don't appreciate it.
My biggest fear is that this isn't just the newspaper business, but it's every business.
As I've said elsewhere, welcome to life in the U.S. in the early 21st century. The founding fathers would be shocked and saddened.
As for Akron ... it's not just Akron. I've worked at one weekly and five daily newspapers. I've plenty of friends and co-workers who have worked elsewhere.
Very, very rarely do I hear of a newspaper journalist happy with where they work.
Maybe it's just that journalists like to bitch a lot. Maybe it's true we're in a dying profession.
Maybe it's true that idiots are in charge of newspapers.
Twenty years ago I heard television was killing newspaper. Now I'm hearing the Internet is killing newspapers. All that is bull. NEWSPAPERS are killing newspapers.
If I didn't work at one, I wouldn't read one. Any of them. I've little interest in sports. I've little interest in comics or obits. I've next to no interest in the muck I see on most Lifestyles pages. And the local news is the same from one town to the next: crime and political screaming. I do have strong interests in national and world news, but I find much more of that online than I do in most daily newspapers.
Do I sound bitter? I guess I do. No, I'm sure I do. And it's not a recent feeling.
I'll stop griping now. No one wants to hear a ranting newspaper editor.
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