Why are you angry today?
Tell us what’s making you upset at your journalism job.
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10,095 Responses to “Why are you angry today?”
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December 8th, 2009 at 2:31 am
I was very excited to get a freelance position with a top newspaper a few months ago – one of the most prestigious names in the business (have fun guessing!). Wow have my illusions been shattered. The editors are terrible, and have been making me look bad in the process!
Minor Issue: They have wound up introducing errors through their edits 90% of the time, and for online-only posts, they often publish WITH the errors. I have had to point out and wait for them to make a correction, every time.
Major issue: They wind up changing the intent of my sentences without running it by me – this is baffling – I am not talking about grammatical edits!
Recently I had an editor change a deprecating sentiment to an overwhelmingly positive sentiment without running it by me. This actually made the story inaccurate and I had readers writing in to question my credibility!
Another editor took one thing I mentioned and added a whole load of false assumptions to it. When I pointed it out and clarified to her, requesting she at least correct it online, she took down the entire section! I assume she wanted to hide her own stupid mistake??
December 8th, 2009 at 12:08 am
I’m angry that one time I did a story that sat on backlog for about 10 months before it got published, and all the while my editor kept asking me for more stories. I still don’t get the point of having me do stories and not publishing them, and still asking for more stories. Publish the ones you fucking have bitch. Let me work on my own shit for my own section. Nobody writies for me but I have to write for everyone else.
I also hate when my editor pretends to be really busy and hands me shit that she normally does. What the hell am I doing, planning a vacation? I’ve got hundreds of photos to sift through and and inbox full of shit to process plus my own copy to write–tonight! Do you own shit your own fucking self and eat it. You’re getting paid more for it.
I’m sick of people who get paid more and have more authoritiy than I complaining about the hours they have to work and shit they have to do. I have to do all the same shit for far less pay and get treated like an intern even though I have six years experience on top of college, so fuck you. Please, give the job to someone new if you don’t like it. I’d rather work for a j-school grad who knew what the fuck he/she was doing than your sappy unqualifid ass who’s just hanging on those couple more years even though we all pray you finally choose to hang it up after trashing the paper for decades. And now you say you don’t even like your own paper. Well you’re the fucking editor, so what does that tell you?
December 7th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
I’m fucking angry that not one iota of leadership comes from our editor. Not that I expect it to. Afterall, the editor is completely unqualified to be an entry level reporter let alone lead the paper into growth. We need an editor who actually has talent and skill in all elements of a paper, not just someone who knows a lot of people. The only creative direction comes from me, which doesn’t help because I have no authority. Leadership needs to come from the top. I always do my best to create new things. But it never catches on. People need someone with authority to pull them out of their complacency. It can’t be me. Everyone else is dead set on doing the same old shit, which is just enough to get by.
I’m sick of working for an editor who is just there to skate by until he can get on Medicare while the rest of us are starving for someone who has creative vision, drive, and talent. I couldn’t talk to my editor about writing if I wanted to. I have a degree in writing and have actually published work outside of the newspaper. He has nothing, wouldn’t know a verb phrase from a gerund. It’s an embarassment to the paper. I’m like 10 times more qualified than the editor but it means nothing to the publisher. The editor’s the golden goose who lays nothing but shit. And the publisher wants a better paper. Well good fucking luck without leadership and a staff that can make it happen. Axe the dinosaur already and get someone behind the gun who can make things happen. God, when I leave there–and I pray it be yesterday–that paper is going to sink like an ass rock. And I can’t wait to see it happen.
December 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Every day I go to work is another day I get beaten over the head with the dull hammer that is small town journalism. Not just small town journalism, mind you, as some small papers don’t do three quarters bad. I’m talking about a small town paper where no one besides me is interested in growth. If anyone were interested in growth, they’d have seen years ago that you can’t keep an editor just because the person knows a lot of people but doesn’t know anything about creative vision. Any college grad with an ounce of ambition can get to know a community just as well within about two years or less. So that reason is out the window. The real reason some people are kept on staff is because the publisher is doing them a charity and not really looking out for the growth of the paper. When you have a vision, you hire the people that can make the vision come alive, not keep the people who are sinking the business. But there is no vision. Our vision is the same every week: let’s do a better paper.
No fuck let’s do a better paper. But how? With the same old shit attitude and lack of creativity? Our publisher keeps trying to beat a dead horse back to life but it ain’t working. Creative vision, drive, and leadership must come from the top, not from me, a six-year entry level reporter because in our company there is no way to move up (and I mean none. Once entry level, always entry level. There are no managers and one editor who the publisher will not replace because he has a soft spot for the person, even though he/she isn’t one percent qualified). And you know what happens when I come up with the next new idea? Everyone hates and tries to shut it down because, God forbid, it’s different than what we’ve always done. And nobody has the ambition to try it, so it’s laid on me. And then when I accomplish it, everyone likes it. I make a suggestion, and everyone will reject it. Then a couple of months later when people start complaining that the paper didn’t do what I suggested right off the bat, they say let’s try it. No fuck let’s try it. That’s why I said it three months ago.
Too fucking smart for the cowshit paper.
How about having an editor that, I don’t know, doesn’t mind computers? How about one who actually knows how to paginate? How about one who actually has a creative vision and understands art and design? How about one who really breaks the mold and understands writing?
No. Not at our paper. At our paper, I hold the most education, honors, and talent, all of which have been demonstrated consistently, and I’m the same entry level reporter who walked in six years ago. I won’t even earn the title, pay, or authority of editor, at least not until the one we have is allowed to retire. And believe me, that way it works is that the editor can have the job as long as he wants because the publisher is afraid to let go of him. And it also pisses me off that even though I’m asked for my opinion, I know it doesn’t mean shit becuase I’m the only one who’s actually on board with change. Everyone else is afraid to say that we have people who suck at their jobs (namely two editors who have no qualification, only years of experience attempting to do journalism). Everyone else believes we can do better if we can somehow just master the status quo.
I hate working at a place that wastes me. I hate taking orders to do the same cornshit assignments as I did when I walked in the door, and taking a pay cut.
I’ve taken more awards than any employee in the history of the company, including those who have worked there much longer, but God forbid I get anywhere for it. Just the same shitass hours and low pay. Hate it. I hate sharing a fucking office with the editor I hate too. It sucks. I can’t stand being in there. I can’t stand that my products are better than anyone elses’s in the company and I get nothing for it.
December 7th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
I speak to my editor only when he wants deadline copy, no congrats, no feedback, no updates, deadline info is all over the place, I am copy on a tap and that is it. I am over it. I feel like quitting and sleeping for a month.
In regards to the ‘nobel profession’ stakes. Being a journo is worse than being a PR because at least PRs are a known quantity. In this gig, you are either hated, admired by the unanitiated, your copy gets screwed up by subs and then you get screamed at by those you interviewed, and then YOU get blammed by your editor. I am OVER IT.
December 7th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Amen to the poster who said that the decision to become a newspaper reporter was the worst decision of his/her life!
It was the worst decision of my life as well!
December 7th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
#10006 I no longer consider PR to be the darkside, if anything journalism is the darkside. We’re convinced that our work is noble and just despite the fact that we work soulless entities run by the heartless people who would sack us without a second thought if it were to their benefit; that screams darkside to me.
Last I checked there wasn’t an angryflack.com and if there was it’s not nearly as active as this site. Don’t feel bad about turning your back on journalism, it turned its back on us a long time ago.
December 7th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Angry Journalist #10,000 ought to get a free shit sandwich or D-Con covered piece of old office birthday cake. The sandwich stealer needs to get on this right away!
December 7th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
10001, I’ve 30 years experiece as a photographer. Got out of photojournalism when digital hit…I could see the writing on the wall. I blame the camera companies themselves (or perhaps mean to say their marketing divisions). It seemed that with the oncome of digital most camera adverts really pushed the ‘anyone can take wonderful, award winning photos’. I have enough ‘faith’ in modern advertising to know that in short order most people, both employers and end users would come to believe this.
Admittedly I got out of the business of taking photos, rather than try to open a studio, which had been an option. I have too many friends in the biz (wedding, portrait, commercial) to know that a great many are suffering.
It has been (IMO) the ‘work-a-day’ photographer who has been hardest hit. The ones doing basic, good quality weddings for $2500…or have a commercial day rate of $1500. It seems these are the photographers whose clients are most likely to consider photos a necessary evil…and don’t see the difference between your $2500 wedding package, with the guarantee that 10 years experiece gives them, and the guy/gal down the block with a Canon Rebel, an evening class under their belt and a $500 price tag.
On the other hand…the real high-end shooters ($10,000 weddings, $3000+day rates) don’t seem to be affected as much…it seems that clients willing to pay that amount of money know what they are paying for, and know that the guy down the block with his Rebel isn’t going to provide it.
But you want to know where the real money is in photography these days? I put on classes every week for those hundreds of people with their brand new Rebel and two lenses who are going to be the next famous pro. After their type ruined a perfectly good profession I have no problem taking their $250 to teach them how to be that famous pro. I run a class every weekend, limit it to eight ’students’ and am full nearly every weekend.
Way more money than I made as photojounalist.
December 7th, 2009 at 10:32 am
I’m angry because we have to tweet a story, while micro-blogging it. Then, during breaks we have to upload vlogs. Next, we have to facebook the story while friending everyone we can so the story gets more play.
We have to shoot video, get still photos and write a story on top of composing an SEO hed in hopes that people google it.
We also have to know how to produce interactive multimedia, and should also have an IT background.
All this, and we get paid what, like $20,000? For skills representing five different majors?
And that’s if we’re lucky?
December 7th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Amen Angry Journalist #10,000! I worked for a very similar newspaper. During the last round of layoffs they got rid of all the competent people at the bottom and kept the idiot managers who are running the place into the ground. As one of my few good editors at that paper once said, “This place wastes talent.” Too many places waste talent. We also got a glimpse into the future. Idiot Son III “interned” in the newsroom over the summer. He barely showed up and when he did his articles needed complete overhauls to the point where it wasn’t even his writing any more. He had some serious entitlement issues and probably drew a bigger paycheck than most of the reporters there.
I’m also cautiously optimistic about my new post-newspaper writing job. I hate that I had to leave newspapers because of poor management. I wish we had leaders in the industry that were smart enough to make it work.
December 7th, 2009 at 6:19 am
Actually, I was fired from my last newspaper job because I claimed an accurate number of overtime hours on my pay sheet (normally about five additional hours a week). My last employer didn’t like that one bit. He said he fired me for claiming too many overtime hours, AND because someone supposedly called the paper to complain that I had been rude to her (and I couldn’t really complain to any federal agencies, because the employer would just claim he fired me for being rude to a customer, when we all know the REAL reason).
I don’t really remember being rude to anyone, and I normally go out of my way to be polite to people, so I don’t know if that claim had any merit to it.
But, being polite and in an enthusiastic mood at our jobs is a major challenge, given all the crap we have to put up with!
December 7th, 2009 at 6:10 am
So, we finally got 10,000 posts, and it didn’t even take two full years!
December 7th, 2009 at 6:08 am
I’m on my vacation right now and am 1,000 miles away from home…..it’s a good thing I brought my laptop and have a WiFi connection……because my editors still expect me to write and e-mail them a story later today…….I’m serious!
December 7th, 2009 at 1:00 am
I have a job interview today with the dark side. I’m so excited I can hardly sleep. Maybe Santa or Vader will visit me early this year.
What would Star Wars have been like if the rebellion treated all of the soldiers like dog shit, to the point where Luke or Wedge would have sucked Darth Vader’s dick to be on the dark side:
“You mean you won’t destroy my relationships or cause me to be an alcoholic? AND I’ll get this cool sword and shoot lighting out of my hands?? I can get onboard with that…”
Sorry for the Star Wars references, but seriously, everyone, pray for me today. Pray that one of the weary, burnt to a crisp critter has a chance to bust loose.
December 7th, 2009 at 12:57 am
#10001 – “If you bought a digital camera six months ago and now have your own photo business, I don’t care about it.”
So you’re such a snob that you’re determined to reject advice from successful people, just because they haven’t “paid their dues”?
You’ll get the business you deserve.
December 7th, 2009 at 12:50 am
It’s true. Journalists and writers are being battered by the market. Lots of others are too, but it seems that writers hang at the low end of the totem pole. Everyone thinks they can write, even when they can’t. Everyone thinks they can report, when only a well-trained (and probably laid-off) few can do it well. Places like Demand Media are cashing in on all of the desperate, out-of-work writers and journalists by offering to work them to death for a pittance. It’s like a sweatshop for writers.
Meanwhile, real journalism has gone down the drain and we’re left with a media that reports non-stop on things like Michael Jackson (he was a pop icon, he died, get over it!) and Tiger Woods. Again, missing the real stories like how the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are contributing to global pollution and ethnic genocide.
It’s a scary job market out there for writers (and everyone else) right now, but it’s scarier to think of the continued perpetuation of misinformation at the hands of the untrained and ill-informed. This is the face of American democracy today, an ideology supposedly fueled by free speech, good information and solid reporting, things we can no longer count on to any degree.
Without good journalism, democracy doesn’t exist. Then again, democracy hasn’t existed in this country for quite a while.
December 6th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
9999 -so close, yet so far LOL. Don’t worry, I am going to try for 20000.
December 6th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
9997 and 9996 have some very good points. I think 2010 will be the year I split from journalism. It just seems like my job is CONSTANTLY on my mind. That is not healthy!
Everywhere I turn, everyone thinks they are a writer or a photographer. Those of us who have busted our asses in this field are just being thrown in with all the other folks. Bleck. Plus, who the heck can remotely pay bills with newspaper pay?
I wonder if we are just prolonging the inevitable.
All this written, sometimes I love my job (believe it or not).
December 6th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
How is business going for those who used to be/are photojournalists but now own their own photo business? I would appreciate any information from anyone who is willing to offer it.
If you bought a digital camera six months ago and now have your own photo business, I don’t care about it. I care about those of us who have truly “paid our dues.”