I wrestle with my selfishness.  It’s an unfair fight because no matter which side I root for either way I want me to win.  But no matter how self-centered I may become, it’s always assuring to know that I’m never the worst because “journalists” in the Legacy Media business can articulate it so much better than any of the other millions of unemployed.  They practice tugging at those heart strings.  Especially those of people out of work as a result of the positions and policies they engraved on the tombstones of their cover stories and editorial pages.

Who else ever got paid to alienate customers as long?

So who would want to be a journalist? It has always been work for the strong-hearted, the bull-headed and the hopelessly romantic. People do this work because they love it. They love telling stories, however grim, seamy, or heartbreaking. In fact, the more heartbreaking the better.

Exploiting the humanity of the downtrodden to raise the all-important “awareness”.  Preferably in pursuit of expanding the nanny state.

That’s not to say that the piece linked to above chronicling the personal experience of the toll on family and career is void of sincerity.  It does.  But it is completely absent of any attempt at understanding  the downfall that the old media brought and continues to bring on what’s left of itself.  An obvious and intentional lack of self-examination.  No amount of New Media business model synergies seminars are going to fix that glaring blindspot:

The end of a love affair is always a little sordid, isn’t it? Awkward moments, bracketed by false reassurances that everything is still OK, postpone the inevitable…. They eye non-profit status with government subsidies like it’s Viagra for print.

The noble non-profits in pursuit of The Public Interest ™.   Dutifully reciting Washington’s message in exchange for their bread.  Or cab fare on the nightstand.

Perhaps they’d like it more if the government decided to take over their business, shut down hundreds of small papers and let the ones who donated the most favorable coverage to their campaigns survive and the really doe-eyed idealists among them can go to Washington like Mr. Smith.

By O’Keefe’s count, “Thomson is one of at least 14 journalists to join the Obama administration, with virtually all of them serving in a communications capacity,” and, intriguingly, O’Keefe asserted “other reporters at national outlets are known to be considering similar roles.”

Maybe those precious few remaining ink-stained wretches can gin up hatred of some hard-hearted Senator who thinks that government employees don’t deserve special treatment more than the private citizens he represents.  Those kinds of “grim, seamy and/or heartbreaking” tales are shiny epaulets on that government communications job résumé.

What kind of vocation calls such brave men and women?  Fearlessly standing up for the Big Guy?  Willing to cut the average American off at the knees to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted?

For myself, I learned a long time ago the one thing we can count on is change. Because of my husband’s work, my life has had a rootlessness to it that I never intended, but have come to accept. The only thing that’s brought me to tears during our latest upheaval is the number of colleagues who’ve have contacted him about a job with the same company. So many good people, so desperate to escape the beast’s arms.

The Beast of the Old Media is unwanted and howling in the backyard.  It’s begs for Big Government to hold it’s tether and water it’s bowl.  It longs to attack on command in pursuit of a “progressive” agenda against the private citizen who must involuntarily underwrite it.  It despises the average American while claiming to look out for Those Who Vote Against Their Best Interests.

At the end, it never realized that all it ever had to do to be successful was to be fair.   Either that or it did and chose to fail.

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