RE: Don Irvine, “Journalism is the Worst 4-year College Investment” aim.org/don-irvine-blog/journalism-is-the-worst-4-year-college-investment/?utm_source=AIM+-+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=cb2dc66700-email061413&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c4ddfc8d9d-cb2dc66700-221581157 Mr. Irvine’s article is unquestionably correct and may even be rather optimistic. Realistically the decline of journalism as a career both from the standpoint of being fiscally and morally rewarding probably goes back a good deal farther than even Mr. Irvine asserted. Perhaps as far back as the days when leading newsroom editors came to the conclusion the highest duty of the journalist was shilling for Woodrow Wilson’s brand of Progressivism or Frank Munsey’s (1854-1925) consolidations and mergers starting in 1915. That goes double for a young conservative or libertarian who idealistically might want to do something concrete about the awful state of the mainstream media. If you want to do any such thing, you better have a rich uncle willing to finance your own newspaper, radio station, or blog. Otherwise, if you don’t toe the Politically Correct mark you either won’t get hired or will be soon forced out of your job. Given the low pay, ideological intolerance of the journalists who already have jobs, and a public more interested in football scores than in whether the president is turning the nation into a prison-state, it is little wonder the state of the media is as terrible as it is. From a personal standpoint, I was a d--n fool to get a journalism degree—especially a graduate degree—and seek a career in that field. Way back when, the great H. L. Mencken referred to journalism as the “life of kings.” But for the young person today contemplating alternatives for his life’s work, you might find becoming a bouncer in a bordello more fiscally and morally rewarding as well as holding a higher place in the public’s esteem. That is the level to which journalism has sunk.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 03:44:54 +0000