Today’s Thought: Life is short

Posted on March 18, 2008 by pat

Life is too short to spend your days toiling away at a job you don’t like.

With an imminent recession facing this country that will surely rock the journalism industry further to the core, it’s a good time to reevaluate what each of us is doing.

A lot of journalism companies aren’t worth working for anymore. If you’re going to get laid off anyway, you might as well enjoy the ride.

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  • http://patrickbeeson.com Patrick Beeson

    So I gotta ask: Why are you in the journalism business if your feelings are very much that this is a dying industry that has little hope of survival?

  • http://www.patthorntonfiles.com pat

    Patrick,

    I believe very much in journalism. I love journalism.

    It’s a builder of democracy. It enlightens people. It changes the course of history.

    I’m not a big fan of the current mainstream media. I know many pillars of today’s MSM will fall, but journalism will live on. We’re in a transitional time away from established media outlets to new media outlets that approach journalism from the bottom up, not top down.

    The current MSM doesn’t need to survive for journalism to survive. In fact, I think the Web is a great opportunity for many new media outlets to spring up. The barriers to entry are very low.

    All that being said, I don’t believe all big journalism companies are bad or that all established journalism outlets are dying. There are some outlets that clearly get it. They’ve answered the call and are ready to take on whatever challenges lie ahead.

    I’m most negative about small-mid-sized dailies. The demands they place on their employees are ridiculous. I think there is a lot of growth for local media, however, and I still bullish on big papers like The New York Times and Washington Post.

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