Sheltering Old Media?

I’ve made it clear that I’m pleased I’m no longer a journalist.

Not that journalists don’t do valuable and noble things. They do. For me, other things, ranging from career fatigue to a perceived lack of support, got in the way of valuable and noble. I’m mostly to blame, I admit. But the allure of a journalism career, for me, got in the way of what I wanted to do as a writer. So I quit. I’m still writing as a technical writer, and I like that just fine and find myself doing valuable and noble things in my new career.

So I like to see what the Columbia Journalism Review is doing to encourage folks like me – consumers, but not producers of news – to support the value and nobility that is local, original journalism.

To a point.

First, there’s this.

Watch the video. It’s good. It reminds us all that most of what we see on the web in regards to news is recycled by people who don’t do original reporting of their own.

Then there’s this. Boiled down:

Notice who is doing original reporting and support them through our consumer choices. And, oh, donate to non-profit journalism/reporting outfits.

Ohh-kay. Great. So, support the status quo: Newspapers and local TV. Subscribe to the paper. Buy from the folks who advertise with the paper and with the local news. Gotcha. Doing that. With the exception of the subscription. I get the paper passed on to me. Most days.

But guess what?

For the local original reporting that interests me the most, I’m turning not to local news, but – surprise – to independent journalists – both professional or not – who do original reporting outside the venue of traditional news outlets.

There’s Bizmojo Idaho, a local blog produced by Paul Menser, whose Shoptalk column used to be the first thing I turned to when it appeared in the local paper. There’s also Idaho Falls Projects, another blog that’s done some original reporting. Not necessarily in-depth, muck-raking as the CJR video promotes, but it’s stuff that’s of interest to me.

Then there’s Dan Yurman’s blog on nuclear research and nuclear energy that occasionally hits news that’s of interest to me, locally.

I’ve seen all three of these outlets featured in traditional media reports locally, and know that they’re watched carefully by at least our local TV station for news tips and such.

So maybe the CJR should, in addition to encouraging support of traditional news outlets, encourage readers and consumers of news to seek out local, independent news producers who are doing original reporting outside of traditional news outlets. But that doesn’t fit in with the status quo that the CJR appears to promote: Old media.

Don't listen to me from here on out. I'm a burned-out, lazy former journalist you should not listen to. But journalism, as I see it, is a young person's game. A young, single person. There are plenty of those. But in most media markets, that's about all you're going to get. Becasue of the pay and the demands on time. That's what killed journalism for me. But don't listen to me because I'm lazy and undisciplined as far as young, single journalists go. Or went. Or whatever. I'm bitter too. I need to buy two shopping malls. It's the cart before the horse, see. Local journalism doesn't pay well. It doesn't pay well because the advertising money is drying up. Readers can find news -- regurgitated and original -- elsewhere, produced by parroting mimics or dedicated professionals and amateurs alike who have a passion for what they're reporting. Originally.

I don't know what the solution is. The CJR doesn't know, beyond the blinding obvious, which isn't really working all that much, if you haven't noticed. Clay Shirky doesn't know, and he gets paid to think on these things.

I'd Rather Be Dead than Special

I know the military attracts that different kind of person that is brash, strong-willed, stubborn. At the same time, it attracts – for both good and ill – those who believe the rules, in a general sense, don’t apply to them, that power begets power, and that, somehow, the federal government has a bottomless supply of money that will always be thrown their way.

And, occasionally, get sidetracked into idiotic things such as appearing on “What’s My Line,” with intellectual heavyweights like Steve Lawrence and Dorothy Killgallen.

Gen. Chuck Yeager is one of those guys. Exuding self-confidence and rightly so, because he is as good as he believes he is.

Still, after reading “Yeager,” his autobiography written with Leo Janos, I can understand why some of that self-confidence brought out enmity among those with whom he had to work. A lot of the rules didn’t apply to him – sneaking into Vietnam from Korea to visit his son while his son was fighting in that war, flouting rules that said he had to check in with the commanding general who disliked him (and Lady Morley) immensely. And they find friends who do the same thing – such as the fellow general who got a taste for golden trout in California and decided on his own (with complicit help from those who should have known better) to import the fish to New Mexico, where the general was to be reassigned. From the book:

If I say General Branch might have gone too far, you can imagine. He decided to transplant the Sierra golden trout into the mountain streams of New Mexico. And he had cooked up his scheme with pals in the New Mexico Fish and Game Department. He authorized Andy to fly up to New Mexico in a four-engine C-130 cargo airplane used to transport troops and vehicles to pick up his pals in their four-wheel drive that carried special oxygenated containers to hold the golden trout. The trip probably violated half a dozen Air Force, federal, and state regulations; but a general is a general, and we were ordered into action.

Yah. Our tax dollars at work here, folks. High military brass flouting the law. Whee.

And it gots for the small stuff, too:

His new assignment was safety director of the Air Force, which made him, in effect, the only general officer who was allowed to pilot an airplane. Of course, like all generals, he had to have a pilot along with him, but Yeager never in his life sat in the second seat. He argued with the Pentagon,” Look, how in the hell can I be in charge of Air Force safety if I can’t fly airplanes myself to see if they are safe?” So, he was the exception to the rule and loved every minute of it.

I put up with asinine rules where I work. But that’s the difference: I put up with them. I don’t look for ways to get around them.

Yes, Chuck Yeager is a hero, if flying around and breaking sound barriers and such makes one a hero. He did much service for the military apparatus of the United States. Still, there’s something that rubs me wrong with the “rules are for other people” mentality that is displayed throughout the book. And it’s likely it’s just me reading too much into this; perhaps with a second reading (and I do keep my books around for second readings) I might feel differently.