Are We Actually in a Journalism Employment Boom, One That Presages a Communications-Led Recovery?

That's the counter-mainstream argument put forward in some detail by biz/econ/interwebs journalist Mike Mandel. Definitely worth a gander.

Link via the Twitter feed of Matthew Yglesias. Nick Gillespie's landmark 1999 piece on the "Culture Boom" here; more Reasony bits on journalism's "golden age" here.

Comments

[Admiral Ackbar]

The only form of valid news comes from words printed on dead trees, written by unionized workers, lovingly handcrafted by unionized workers!

No other form of news is valid. Not news on this new fangled moving picture box, or this even newer fangled typing glowing computer machine box. The radio is okay, but only if it’s NPR (or sports, but only the plebs follow those).

Didn’t you know that?

[fresnodan]

The only form of valid news comes from words printed on dead trees, written by unionized workers, lovingly put in a politically correct form by liberal, statist editors ‘in the know’!
There – fixed it.

[?]

Weigel alone accounts for at least two saved or created jobs. Hiyo.

The comments are GOLD, of course:

…the average journalist is underpaid relative to their quality of education and analytical ability.
White people talk like this.

[DG]

I’d say journalists are right in line with most liberal arts majors in terms of pay. Want to get paid? Become an engineer.

[Episiarch]

There seem to be few professions more navel-gazing, self-involved, and fucking retarded than journalism. Public school teachers come to mind.

[fresnodan]

Ask yourself this about ‘journalism’ – how much is pure, unbiased, indisputable fact? If you got rid of the sports pages, I dare say most papers or news programs would be considerably less than 1%
So the rest is analysis. So just consider those you read, like, and agree with – how many provide you with ‘analysis’ where you say, gee!! (yes, I actually say ‘gee,’ and occasionally ‘wow-ee’ which is a never ending source of amusement here at the assylum…er, work) – not much, I would wager. Consumers aren’t willing to pay much, because its not worth much. Very little real insight, critical analysis, or learned discussion. But thats OK – it is what it is, and it is worth what its worth.

[SugarFree]

Yglesias and his +1 Beard of Sadness run a funny Twitter feed. He sounds just like joe…

NoahPollak
@elilake gets into bitch-fights on twitter when he’s relaxing after breaking news. @mattyglesias does it because it’s all he’s got.

————–

mattyglesias
@NoahPollak Actually, I spend most of my time writing a well-regarded blog.

Twitter pouting is all the rage.

[Episiarch]

“Well-regarded” is loser-speak for “I don’t bring in any revenue”.

[Dagny T.]

It is a rather lackluster beard.

[SugarFree]

Sadness Beard on the Goldstein/Mangu-Ward Bloggingheads.

Shockingly, he thinks that keeping kids in school 12-hours a day is a good idea. And the left shibboleth that schools would be awesome if we just shoveled more money into them. Darn those greedy rich people.

[Dagny T.]

I like the casual assumption that parents in “poor, urban neighborhoods” are especially unfit to decide what their children should eat, or how they should spend their time. If only the sadbeard could control them bestow his benevolent wisdom upon them.

[SugarFree]

I will say something for SadBeard… he doesn’t bitch out like Krug does… he let’s negative comments through:

# cdosquared5 says:
August 12th, 2010 at 1:05 pm

matt, you should shave the beard? it would expose the triple chin but you would look like less of a pedophile.

just sent the photo into america’s most wanted.

[R C Dean]

Seeing as there are very few journalists actually working, as far as I can tell (not to be confused with the hordes of inept crypto-activists or crypto-flacks infesting the information business), I’m not sure how there can be any kind of journalism employment boom.

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