5 ms·

Exactly this - one wonders why anyone would rationally become a journalist. The pay is crap, the verbal attacks are constant ("fake news", etc), the competition

Exactly this - one wonders why anyone would rationally become a journalist. The pay is crap, the verbal attacks are constant ("fake news", etc), the competition is immense (publish NOW because it's already on Twitter, yet it needs to be 100% factually accurate, so don't forget to triple-check your sources), and oh by the way, if you report on anything of societal value (rooting out corruption, printing stories about drug cartels), you may get yourself killed. Or I could sit quietly, write some code to enable more ad views on tech platform du jour, get paid bank, and complain about journalism on Hacker News with my free time between deploys. Guess which one I would choose?

paulddraper 7y ago
One may wonder the same about many professions like primary/secondary teaching. The answer is that lots of humans like that sort of work.
52-6F-62 7y ago
Having worked closely with and been friends with journalists: It's because they believe in the work, find it interesting compared to other lines of work, or were inspired by other writers. They don't get into it for the money. They leave the profession or advance in position for the money.
mikeyouse 7y ago
> and oh by the way, if you report on anything of societal value (rooting out corruption, printing stories about drug cartels), you may get yourself killed. Don't forget sued, which prevents many independent journalists from being as aggressive as they should be with the plutocratic class and large corporations in countries where murdering journalists is still verboten. If you don't have the legal resources (and insurance) of a major news organization behind you, good luck writing the type of stories that cause discomfort to the powerful.
- ryacko 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_... https://www.propublica.org/article/terror-in-little-saigon-vietnam-american-journalists-murdered https://www.propublica.org/article/terror-in-little-saigon-v... If you confront the powerful, it often ends up being too little, too late, in terms of government protections.
ousta 7y ago
well the fake news blame is not coming out of nothing. just look at what they did showing explosions in kentucky and saying it was syria. we clearly live in an age where this kind of lie doesnt work anymore.
glofish 7y ago
but maybe in ten years, you'll regret your choice or maybe you won't because you won't even know what you are missing out not judging you, I program and sit in an office, but I can understand the magic of being in the middle of the pulse of the world. It is a world that I only look at as a bystander. perhaps being a journalist is paid little because it is you are more alive, instead of programming the next punch-the-monkey, you are tracking the money that rich people hide, investigate the dark side, with that you basically "live longer"
- xwdv 7y ago
  Even in a hundred years he wouldn’t regret the choice. Nothing you described sounds appealing. Journalists see most technology like a black box that does mysterious things and produces an output, just like a bystander. If you don’t want to be a bystander to those processes, you become a programmer.
  - zilian 7y ago
    Why are you so sure you can't be both ?
    - xwdv 7y ago
      Because there are only 24 hours in a day and roughly a third of those are already spent sleeping and eating. Edit: I see down vote bots are in full effect.
  - glofish 7y ago
    you are conflating the job of journalist with a journalist's relationship with technology - even at that, you are both generalizing and oversimplifying. What I specifically referred to is that programming a computer as a day job (for example as the poster said their job is optimizing ads for a website) is probably far less fulfilling than following and analyzing world events and doing journalism. That's all.
    - xwdv 7y ago

paulddraper 7y ago

One may wonder the same about many professions like primary/secondary teaching. The answer is that lots of humans like that sort of work.

52-6F-62 7y ago

Having worked closely with and been friends with journalists: It's because they believe in the work, find it interesting compared to other lines of work, or were inspired by other writers. They don't get into it for the money. They leave the profession or advance in position for the money.

mikeyouse 7y ago

> and oh by the way, if you report on anything of societal value (rooting out corruption, printing stories about drug cartels), you may get yourself killed. Don't forget sued, which prevents many independent journalists from being as aggressive as they should be with the plutocratic class and large corporations in countries where murdering journalists is still verboten. If you don't have the legal resources (and insurance) of a major news organization behind you, good luck writing the type of stories that cause discomfort to the powerful.

ryacko 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_... https://www.propublica.org/article/terror-in-little-saigon-vietnam-american-journalists-murdered https://www.propublica.org/article/terror-in-little-saigon-v... If you confront the powerful, it often ends up being too little, too late, in terms of government protections.

ousta 7y ago

well the fake news blame is not coming out of nothing. just look at what they did showing explosions in kentucky and saying it was syria. we clearly live in an age where this kind of lie doesnt work anymore.

glofish 7y ago

but maybe in ten years, you'll regret your choice or maybe you won't because you won't even know what you are missing out not judging you, I program and sit in an office, but I can understand the magic of being in the middle of the pulse of the world. It is a world that I only look at as a bystander. perhaps being a journalist is paid little because it is you are more alive, instead of programming the next punch-the-monkey, you are tracking the money that rich people hide, investigate the dark side, with that you basically "live longer"

xwdv 7y ago
Even in a hundred years he wouldn’t regret the choice. Nothing you described sounds appealing. Journalists see most technology like a black box that does mysterious things and produces an output, just like a bystander. If you don’t want to be a bystander to those processes, you become a programmer.
- zilian 7y ago
  Why are you so sure you can't be both ?
  - xwdv 7y ago
    Because there are only 24 hours in a day and roughly a third of those are already spent sleeping and eating. Edit: I see down vote bots are in full effect.
- glofish 7y ago
  you are conflating the job of journalist with a journalist's relationship with technology - even at that, you are both generalizing and oversimplifying. What I specifically referred to is that programming a computer as a day job (for example as the poster said their job is optimizing ads for a website) is probably far less fulfilling than following and analyzing world events and doing journalism. That's all.
  - xwdv 7y ago