Should Journalists be Allowed to Live?

Whether they deserve it or not may be open to debate, but journalists are the target of a great deal of negative sentiment and general disdain.

Now, I wouldn't want this to become public knowledge, but I worked as a journalist at times past.

I remember some of the explanations I gave people for my occupation.

"I only do this because I can't find honest work," I once told a member of the board of supervisors in Buchanan County.

I remember telling someone once that I was a journalist because I liked living dangerously.

"There are people out there - people whose court cases I've covered," I said. "I enjoy the feeling I get from knowing that their relatives want to meet me in a dark alley."

And I recall telling a family member once that I worked as a journalist because I couldn't find another job that kept me on 24 hour call - and that I liked being needed.

The truth, I suppose, is that I went back to journalism when I moved to Tazewell County because I was over-educated.

When I moved to Southwest Virginia in 1995, I couldn't get a job carrying bricks at a construction site: such jobs paid (much) better than the pittance work as a reporter offered me; but I'd been to college. No one would hire a menial laborer with a college degree.

I remember telling a prospective employer once that I was honest, went to church, showed up on time and had NEVER filed a workman's comp claim. There was a long moment of silence before I was told I still couldn't be hired.

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But back to the question at hand...

I've occasionally met members of the profession whom I felt did not deserve to live. Occassionally.

In my twenty-odd years in and out of the field, I have more often met reporters I thought should be put out of their misery: they whine and complain about how they are treated, how hard their jobs is, how little they get paid, how long it's been since their last raise, how little time they get for lunch, how unrealistic the expectations of the editorial staff are, how unrealistic the expectations of the general public are, and ...

Sorry, I got sidetracked. But one or two of the reporters I've known made me think they'd feel better off if they were dead - or at least unemployed.

Part of the animosity aimed at journalists is embedded in their job. I once heard it said that a reporter's job was to go out and see whose oatmeal he could crap in today. While that view is cynical, it is also part truth. Scandal sells papers, even local papers. And there are few things the public enjoys more than seeing some local official look stupid.

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