Here’s an interesting post on what journalists do after they lose their job. I always assumed they just found a hole somewhere to die in, but apparently a lot of them get other jobs. I don’t know what a former journalist is qualified for, though. I mean, that aren’t really a lot of jobs for dimwitted, partisan hacks. There are college professors, but there are already so many useless liberals vying for those cushy jobs. I guess a former journalist can be that guy who rips your ticket when you go to the movies. They could also probably stand by the side of a road and wave a sign for some business. Any other ideas?
As the wife of a Conservative journalist, yes that’s right, there are a few of them out there, who have been beating their heads against a brick wall for 20+years I have a somewhat different perspective.
He is a former Navy photojounalist, who believes in objectivity and the publics right to know the FACTS, no matter who looks bad. He is someone who actually believes that if given the truth most people will do the right thing and make good decisions.
He’s the eternal optimist. He’s also still unemployed.
Me, I think (as agent J so succinctly put it in Men In Black:) “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know it.”
How about target holders at an M1A2 Abrams firing range?
Let’s see, off the top of my head, I’d say: Community Organizer
Hmmm. Sounds like seanmahair’s husband is a journalist with objectivity. “Just the facts, ma’am.”
He doesn’t fit Frank’s hypothesis. But perhaps he should try writing / photography on the web. Have laptop and camera, will travel – or work from home. That sort of thing.
I think most hack journalists would make excellent carnies. They already have the ability to see the obvious and tell you something entirely different. “Sorry, you did throw that ring entirely over that duck, but your arm went over the invisible foul line that I just invented”
Maybe with all that free time they could perhaps study journalism. It would be fun to see the looks on their faces when they heard for the first time that the role of the journalist isn’t to “make a difference,” but is instead to actually report the facts in an unbiased manner. Who knew?
” B.C. says: How about target holders at an M1A2 Abrams firing range?”
I like the way you think. I was going to suggest target holder at the local range, but by all means, let’s implement your plan.
Working at a stable so that they can continue their current occupation.
I have to disagree, sort of. I don’t think journalists themselves are inherently liberal. I am sure that the editors/publishers are biased in the most extreme, according to what they ‘think’ people want to read. My guess is that the editors/publishers are looking for a certain ‘type’ of journalist, and will hire them based on that. I suspect, for the most part, a journalist is pretty inocuous, on his own, mostly just doing the bidding of his ‘boss’. As the wife of the unemployed conservative journalist mentioned above can attest, there is little market for a non-liberal journalist, at least on the surface. If conservatives would start a business whereby the hiring of conservative editors/publishers was the normal practice, many of those same ‘liberal’ journalists of today would redily accept the new ‘code’ and adapt quite quickly (especially after living a while tearing tickets at the theater). BTW, when I type journalist, I mean print writers, not media-whore talking heads on the booby-tube.
Most of them are taking phone orders for Sham-Wow!
Another conservative journalist here, albeit one who writes for an Electrical Engineering Trade mag. That being said, the best way to neutralize a journalist is give him a bucket. He’ll take care of the rest.
And Son of Bob is wrong. They’re taught to “make a difference,” and “question authority,” which leads them to create the news rather than report it– and that’s the problem.
Sanitation Engineer? They are already well versed in handling trash…
Door opener for Obama?
Whenever the carnival or circus comes to town, I like to think that journalists are manning the seat in the dunking booth.
Sadly, I’ve never been able to dunk one though, as the cage always interferes with my knuckle ball slider.
Nah, journalists are afraid of water. You know the rules:
1) Don’t get them wet.
2) Don’t expose them to bright light.
and
3) Don’t feed them after midnight.
Instead of the MythBusters using chickens, pigs and whatnot to do their experiments, why not use journalists?
I always hate to see a good chicken or pig goto waste.
Male journalists would make excellent butt recepticles for Barney Frank
In Philadelphia they can strive to become a Cop Killing Taxi Driver like their hero Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Mobile speed bumps?
Let’s see… There’s still a wall to be built. That would be a productive change of pace from their World of Me and Make-Believe.
It won’t be long before the Treasury will be hiring lots of folks who know how to run a printing press. The new job will be really close to what they used to do; instead of printing worthless rags, they can print worthless currency!!
ussjimmycarter,
I hear that’s already a part time job for many of the current staff of the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle.
How about hiring them as speech writers for Democrats? They’re already quite adept at comical fiction. Better yet, how about crash test dummies? Pig farming is also quite close to their former occupations.
You are correct Alucard. Schools like Columbia School of Journalism rigidly indoctrinate their student, cull those who don’t buy into the ‘journalism as advocate’…liberal advocate of course….and then turn them loose where they suffer for years with crappy, low-paying jobs (or worse, unpaid internships) as they frantically cut each others throats for a shot at the game. No wonder they are so angry and pissed off…they’re poor, abused, and in a business thay can see shrinking before their beady little eyes. IF at any timethey stray from the liberal dogma and ideology…it’s over.
On the bright side, it’s gonna be fun to watch the newspapers and most major news media outlets suffer, burn, and bubble as they melt down and slowly die from a lack of relevance. Die, idealogues!!
No one’s yet mentioned “ya want fries with that?”
NunyaB, would you want to be served food by a journalist? I for one do not want to be poisoned.
I got it! they become mentors for lawyers and kennedys
Marko, I think just someone to point out the difference between a window and a door to HObama might suffice. He’d need a gang of them because he never changes his mind unless it polls well with a large number of people.
Some thoughts from the past;
“I deplore… the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them… These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound food. As vehicles of information and a curb on our funtionaries, they have rendered themselves useless by forfeiting all title to belief… This has, in a great degree, been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit.” –Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 1814. ME 14:46
“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807. ME 11:224
“Our newspapers, for the most part, present only the caricatures of disaffected minds. Indeed, the abuses of the freedom of the press here have been carried to a length never before known or borne by any civilized nation.” –Thomas Jefferson to M. Pictet, 1803. ME 10:357
but………
“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.” –Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:57
The more things change the more they stay the same.
HEY…ALL OF YOU….Cut it out!
What do I mean? We are just sitting around a virtual coffee table, snickering… Where are those willing to roll up our sleeves and start becoming Real Americans? By that I mean REAL community activists. YES, REAL ones! Now is the time to get out there and start talking to people, especially the young, and get them to see reality, before it is too late (i.e. they become shills for Communism like many Journalists are ending up doing). Don’t you see what is happening? The new media is becoming what the Main Stream Media has become. The Left, the America Haters, the FAUX Americans are all ganging up on the rest of Freedom Loving people. All I see here is a bunch of snickering going on. Instead of making jokes about unemployed journalists, go out and develop REAL work for them and have them shill for truth and freedom for a change. Kick that Marxist “TRUTH TO POWER” crap out. Now is the time to act in the name of the Constitution, before it is too late….
You’ll have to forgive us here at IMAO. We’ve been banging our heads against the media machine for years. Many of us are veteran campaigners of the war against “truth to power” since before it was popular.
We deserve time to savor the fact that “WE WERE RIGHT” dag nab it.
Sometimes you’re the windshield, some times you’re the bug, sometimes you’re a 40 pound mosquito. When you are it’s nice to pause and say…..good job.
“They’re taught to “make a difference,” and “question authority,” which leads them to create the news rather than report it– and that’s the problem.”
That pretty much nails it…much as I hate to see people lose their jobs, newspapers brought it on their own heads.
Past their expiration dates also are teevee networks: ABC NBC CBS PBS
Long overdue, and I say good riddance to them all.
seanmahair; Good on ‘ya, mate!
Crash test dummies. They’ve already mastered the last part of the phrase.
Won’t they just do what they are used to doing and go to D.C. and be whores for the Democrat Pols like thay always have been?
Maybe thosae who are too diseased to fuck, like the Ho’s at MSDNC, can just to meanial chores like ass wiping and such.
Boat anchors
Your knees are beginning to look incredibly tasty.
Being a conservative journalist myself, I would have to agree with all of the above;
I appear to be a hairy gob-stopper in need of serious brain surgery and cooking lessons. Fear not, people of Earth, you will be rewarded.
Just kill the Journalists and resort to watching animated cartoons instead.
You folks enjoy your crusade against journalists. Keep making those jokes about shooting em and so on. But the way things are going, pretty soon, they and their newspapers are gone. Then you’ll have nobody to report on your leaders, be they democrats or republicans, and what they’re doing with your taxes. And you’ll have nobody to report on the CEO who’s sending your jobs overseas. Then think back on your posts and remember fondly the chuckles you had.
There’s a reason the founding fathers guaranteed freedom of the press, just as there’s a reason they guaranteed the right to bear arms. For more than 200 years, journalists have served as this country’s watchdog. But what happens to the house once the watchdog is put to sleep? We’re not too far from finding out, and we should all fear the answer.
Thanks, George. You are entirely correct. They won’t be laughing their asses off once it happens.
Speaking as a longtime newspaper reporter for a small daily paper, I’m not sure why it matters if the journalist is liberal or conservative if he or she is doing the normal job of presenting information. Slanted writing is bad whether conservative or liberal. I’m an atheist, and I’ve had clergy praise my stories. I think Take Back the Night (while it has its good points) is sexist and anti-male, but the first time I covered the event, the women’s studies department head told me “you rock.” My opinions don’t belong in my stories. If I’m reporting on a planning commission meeting, I write about what happened at that meeting. If I write about, say, a woman who lost her child, the story is her story. I repeat: my opinions don’t belong in my stories. And lots of my fellow reporters feel similarly. I don’t take part in partisan or activist activities. Reporters aren’t usually out to sell papers; that’s someone else’s job. We are here to provide information on need-to-know stuff, and want-to-know stuff. Yes, some want to “change the world,” but that’s not the day-to-day reporter.
I’m a journalist who also is a registered republican. The profession on the whole does tend to employ more democrats than republicans, but that being said I’d still say most journalists – even openly opinioned columnists – rely more on facts and analisys than most people. Especially bloggers.