As cutbacks become commonplace across the country, working journalists tell me they fear not just losing their jobs but being separated from something that has come to define much of their lives — the newsroom. I also feel their anxiety. Cutbacks and buyouts have been visited upon other industries — airlines, automobiles, textiles — but for some reason the cutting of news staffs is different, and not just because I’ve spent most of my adult life in and around journalism. Before our profession became so seemingly dispensable (and the butt of so many jokes), it was an honorable calling, a civic duty much like being a teacher or a cop. It was often difficult, at times unpleasant, work for modest pay. But it was rewarding because it mattered to us and the public. It mattered because what we did was more than stenography or impassive spectating. And for the record, “journalism” is not pointing a camera phone in the direction of the action. That’s little more than voyeurism. ...
Anytime
