Hard times at the bullshit factory

These are dog days in the journalism profession. Mainstream journo jobs have been downsized, rationalized, optimized, sanitized, professionalized, minimized, and just plain axed by the tens of thousands over the last decade or two.

Meanwhile, the J-schools keep pumping out new candidates for imaginary jobs.

There was a brief period as I was coming up when I toyed with the idea of a journalism career. It was the early '80's. Woodward and Bernstein were pop-culture icons. Journalism was a cool career that might even give you a chance to change the world!

I wrote a couple of things for the Ontarion, the student newspaper at the U of Goo. That was fun! I'd meet people at parties and they'd say hey, I read your article...

Made me feel good!

Then I wrote a feature on the Ontario Veterinary College. I interviewed a bunch of bigs at the college, including The Dean. These were folks who sported bespoke suits and ostentatious Rolex watches and liked to talk about the latest UN conference they'd attended, even though that's not what you were there to talk about.

The Ontario Veterinary College was the prestigious core around which an otherwise mediocre university had sprung up. It had just had its accreditation with the American Veterinary Medical Association downgraded to "probationary" status, which was something of a black eye. That's what I wanted to talk about.

A couple of hours after interviewing The Dean I got a call from his secretary. Mr. Dean wanted to proof my story before it appeared in public. This didn't agree with me. Although I've mellowed somewhat over the years, at the time I was the sort of obnoxious know-it-all who would have heckled Jesus as he was delivering the Sermon on the Mount.

I wasn't taking any guff from Mr. Dean.

So I published the story and sought the Dean's approval afterward, which pissed off not only him but a number of other well-dressed twats with nice wrist pieces, and that was the last story I had in the Ontarion.

Things are exponentially more fraught for working journalists today. Every in-house writer at any major title knows they are one story removed from becoming a blogger. These are smart people who, for the most part, know when they are writing bullshit, but they will keep writing it because they like the pay and perks that come with the position.

The kind of journalism practiced in the era of Oriana Fallaci, Molly Ivins, or IF Stone is long dead. Those more-or-less establishment writers would all be begging you to support their blog today. Mainstream journalism has become nothing more or less than the bullhorn of Empire.

That was of course always the case, but up until recently there was always room for dissenting voices within the mainstream.


Those days are over.

Journalism is over

But journalism schools are not. Not yet, anyway.

Sooner or later the young keeners who want to become the next Oriana Fallaci or I.F. Stone will have to face a new reality. There is no place in contemporary journalism for that kind of reportage.

Me and the Farm Manager travelled to Port Elgin today for Pumpkinfest. We go for the cars, not the pumpkins. It costs five bucks to see the pumpkins. The cars are free. It's one of the finest free car shows you'll ever get anywhere.

Thirty years ago I was doing a bit of writing for my college paper, the Ontarion. Interviewed the President of the Ontario Veterinary College for a story. By the time I got home there was a message on my answering machine from his secretary; he'd like to see the story before it came out. As in he'd "like to see" it or else.

Or else what?

He was the top dog at the most prestigious school at U of Goo.

I was a dumbshit undergrad with writerly pretensions.

He wore a Rolex.

I wore a Timex.

Or else what do you think?

Big turn-out of vintage muscle cars today, and also a lot of old pick-ups. My spirits were buoyed by the FM's attraction to a number of fifty's era trucks. I can almost see myself bringing home a mid-fifties hot-rodded F-100 and getting away with it...

Almost.

Nice turn out of sixties and seventies muscle cars; Super Bees, Road Runners, and so forth. What a shame that you can go to your local Subaru dealer and buy a car off the lot that will smoke those "muscle cars" in the quarter mile, never mind what they'll do to you in a corner.

There were a number of big block Chevys on display, including a supercharged Chevelle with wheelie bars. You can go to your local Dodge dealer and order up a four-door Dodge Charger that will leave your supercharged Chevelle with its wheelie bars twenty car-lengths behind in a drag race.

On the way home I stopped at the Korean variety store and picked up my Saturday Globe and Mail for $5.25. Joked with the guy behind the counter about when it might become a six dollar newspaper.

Probably next month, we agreed.

When I related that exchange to the FM, she rejoindered, "journalism is over."

And she's right.

Would Bernstein or Woodward get past their unpaid internship today? Or Seymour Hersh? I doubt it.

Helen Thomas had a great thing going till she ran afoul of the winds of political correctitude.

If those winds are strong enough to silence a veteran journo like her, imagine how they must intimidate some newbie hoping to impress on her unpaid internship.

We've still got a few folks speaking truth to power. Gideon Levy and Robert Fisk come to mind. But by and large the media space is now occupied by complacent and compliant J-school grads who will tweet and blog and Facebook according to their employers expectations.

The Farm Manager was right.

Journalism is over.