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I've got no desire to kick people when their down, and make no mistake, these journalists are down. However, there is a tendency for people in media to look do

I've got no desire to kick people when their down, and make no mistake, these journalists are down. However, there is a tendency for people in media to look down on people with blue collar jobs, and to minimize the difficult of being an effective software engineer. It has resulted in a bunch of $group_of_unemployed_people should just get with the times posts. I'd feel bad for them if they didn't do it to other people first.

Arzh 8y ago
I must be blind to these so do you have any solid examples where the people who are doing the jobs are being talked down to?
- fullshark 8y ago
  I don't know if these qualify but google search for "coal miners coding" turns up a ton of pieces about some coal miners shifting work to coding. Presumably these people think such profiles are kind of condescending as the implied story is "your blue collar career is on the outs and your labor has no value." e.g. https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/05/06/477033781/from-coal-to-code-a-new-path-for-laid-off-miners-in-kentucky https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/05/06/47... https://abcnews.go.com/US/coal-miners-taught-html-coding-career/story?id=54988203 https://abcnews.go.com/US/coal-miners-taught-html-coding-car... https://www.forbes.com/sites/annefield/2017/01/30/turning-coal-miners-into-coders-and-preventing-a-brain-drain/#4eb94422f81d https://www.forbes.com/sites/annefield/2017/01/30/turning-co... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/21/tech-industry-coding-kentucky-hillbillies https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/21/tech-industr... https://www.wired.com/2017/02/programming-is-the-new-blue-collar-job/ https://www.wired.com/2017/02/programming-is-the-new-blue-co...
  - shortformblog 8y ago
    The nature of journalism is that outlets report on things that are happening in the world. If these stories were just long opinion pieces about why former coal miners should code, that would be one thing and the criticism would be valid. But each of these pieces linked is literally a reported out piece about actual people and groups teaching people to code. You could probably go back and forth on whether the idea condescends to blue-collar workers. But the fact is, there wouldn't be these stories if the trend didn't exist and there wasn't a legitimate effort to make it happen before a reporter gave someone a call.
  - manicdee 8y ago
    There's nothing implied at all. They are blue collar workers. Their career is on the decline because the mines are closing and there aren't enough new ones opening up to simply transfer the existing labour force to the new mines. So you retrain these people for work that is available.
  - DerekL 8y ago
    Can you find any of these articles published on BuzzFeed? The problem with this criticism is that it claims that all journalists have the same opinion on blue-collar-retraining issue.
hprotagonist 8y ago
> However, there is a tendency for people in media to look down on people with blue collar jobs,... In what universe is journalism a blue-collar job?
- Supermancho 8y ago
  Some people mistake blue collar to mean middle class, instead of tradesman (ie white collar is where you don't have to worry about getting your shirt dirty). Journalism is certainly white collar work, regardless of how it pays.
- Retra 8y ago
  Not the one which includes the text you highlighted.
ggggtez 8y ago
"They". Who is they? All journalists everywhere? It's not like being a journalist is like being a fortune 500 CEO, or some kind of Zuckerberg. I think you'll find they are human for the most part.
52-6F-62 8y ago
This is all kinds of wrong. I'm a happy software engineer (feel I should add that I'm not with any of the firms or related firms to those in the article) working closely with the media and hold a strong belief in journalism's positive effect on my society. Even if I don't always directly benefit. I'm a little speechless with regard to the immediate responses in this thread. I've not always had a great time with journalists in where I've lived, but I'd take them over the other options any day. I don't think your take is accurate. I'd be happy to talk it out.

Arzh 8y ago

I must be blind to these so do you have any solid examples where the people who are doing the jobs are being talked down to?

fullshark 8y ago
I don't know if these qualify but google search for "coal miners coding" turns up a ton of pieces about some coal miners shifting work to coding. Presumably these people think such profiles are kind of condescending as the implied story is "your blue collar career is on the outs and your labor has no value." e.g. https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/05/06/477033781/from-coal-to-code-a-new-path-for-laid-off-miners-in-kentucky https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/05/06/47... https://abcnews.go.com/US/coal-miners-taught-html-coding-career/story?id=54988203 https://abcnews.go.com/US/coal-miners-taught-html-coding-car... https://www.forbes.com/sites/annefield/2017/01/30/turning-coal-miners-into-coders-and-preventing-a-brain-drain/#4eb94422f81d https://www.forbes.com/sites/annefield/2017/01/30/turning-co... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/21/tech-industry-coding-kentucky-hillbillies https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/21/tech-industr... https://www.wired.com/2017/02/programming-is-the-new-blue-collar-job/ https://www.wired.com/2017/02/programming-is-the-new-blue-co...
- shortformblog 8y ago
  The nature of journalism is that outlets report on things that are happening in the world. If these stories were just long opinion pieces about why former coal miners should code, that would be one thing and the criticism would be valid. But each of these pieces linked is literally a reported out piece about actual people and groups teaching people to code. You could probably go back and forth on whether the idea condescends to blue-collar workers. But the fact is, there wouldn't be these stories if the trend didn't exist and there wasn't a legitimate effort to make it happen before a reporter gave someone a call.
- manicdee 8y ago
  There's nothing implied at all. They are blue collar workers. Their career is on the decline because the mines are closing and there aren't enough new ones opening up to simply transfer the existing labour force to the new mines. So you retrain these people for work that is available.
- DerekL 8y ago
  Can you find any of these articles published on BuzzFeed? The problem with this criticism is that it claims that all journalists have the same opinion on blue-collar-retraining issue.

hprotagonist 8y ago

> However, there is a tendency for people in media to look down on people with blue collar jobs,... In what universe is journalism a blue-collar job?

Supermancho 8y ago
Some people mistake blue collar to mean middle class, instead of tradesman (ie white collar is where you don't have to worry about getting your shirt dirty). Journalism is certainly white collar work, regardless of how it pays.
Retra 8y ago
Not the one which includes the text you highlighted.

ggggtez 8y ago

"They". Who is they? All journalists everywhere? It's not like being a journalist is like being a fortune 500 CEO, or some kind of Zuckerberg. I think you'll find they are human for the most part.

52-6F-62 8y ago

This is all kinds of wrong. I'm a happy software engineer (feel I should add that I'm not with any of the firms or related firms to those in the article) working closely with the media and hold a strong belief in journalism's positive effect on my society. Even if I don't always directly benefit. I'm a little speechless with regard to the immediate responses in this thread. I've not always had a great time with journalists in where I've lived, but I'd take them over the other options any day. I don't think your take is accurate. I'd be happy to talk it out.