Requiem for a journalism career

It is with considerable sadness, and more than a little bit of anger, that I put -30- at the end of my journalism career.

Traditional (read old-school, or perhaps just old) journalists have for years communicated to editors the end of a submitted story by typing “-30-“ at the end of the copy. This practice dates to the days when stories were pounded out on typewriters and sometimes used more than one piece of paper. When that happened, a writer typed “-more-“ at the bottom of the first page to tell an editor that there was, well, more to the story.

In spite of my horribly advanced age — I’m 58 — I worked as a journalist for only 15 years. Newspapering was a second career for me after spending 16 years working for a local government department. When I left my comfort zone as a recreation and parks supervisor, I put my tail between my legs and set out to learn everything I could about print journalism, with the goal of being the best possible voice for the community my paper served.

The editor took a big chance on hiring me, an applicant with no writing experience and without a journalism degree. He hedged his bets for a while by assigning me to warm and fuzzy features that couldn’t be messed up while trusting the serious news to the young J-school grads on staff.

But that quickly changed. Within 10 months of being hired, all three of my younger colleagues resigned to pursue other opportunities and I was the senior reporter.

During the time I worked for that first paper, I wrote about everything under the sun. I discovered a double-leg-amputee swimmer training with a local recreation council swim club and introduced her to the community via a two-part feature story (the series went on to win what would be my first national journalism award). That swimmer, Jessica Long, is now a globally-traveled national, world and Paralympic record holder with 12 Paralympic medals to her name.

I wrote about the slow and frustrating revitalization of an aging community, the economic impact of a Super Bowl-bound football team, the accomplishments of local educators and schools, the efforts of local churches, election results, the ugly impact of dumping, rec council embezzling, photographed the funeral of a family of six killed in a house fire and covered more community meetings and other gatherings than I could possibly remember.

I left the local weekly to go to a daily newspaper in Western Maryland and left that job to gather more skills by joining an online hyper-local news network owned by AOL.

After two years of denial, I finally have planned the funeral for my journalism career.

Each time I moved within the journalism field, it was with the goal of improving my writing and gaining additional skills to stay relevant and up-to-date in an ever-changing industry.

When I accepted a job at Patch, I thought it would be my last journalism job. It turns out that was an accurate prediction, but not for the reasons I originally thought. I planned to stay with the company until retirement beckoned. I enjoyed the work-from-home/heart-of-the-community environment, and I work well independently and am capable of setting my own deadlines and hitting them.

However, Patch turned out to be a miserably failed business model, and after years of losing big money, shareholders made it well known something needed to be done to stop the bleeding. Layoffs started with great gusto, first with small numbers of employees here and there and ending with two huge purges that jettisoned close to 1,000 employees over a three-month period.

I was one of several hundred people who were let go via a conference call in January 2014 after AOL sold the majority of the company to a venture capitalist.

While I cried some serious tears the day of the announcement, and drowned my sorrows in several Wild Turkey Manhattans made by my favorite bartender, Sandy Thorn, I felt confident I would have a job in no time.

I knew my work ethic was much higher than average, I knew I could pound out a lot of work that required little editing and rarely published anything that required a correction and I knew I had the resume to snag a job. Over those 15 years, I had collected more than 50 writing and photography awards from state, regional and national press associations, had more than enough clips to show the ability to write on any beat and had glowing references.

How naive was I!

Two years later to the day of the layoffs, I would estimate that I have applied for at least 250 jobs, and have lost track of how many of them were journalism/communications/PR/marketing positions.

Well over a year ago, when I got passed over for 20-somethings in job after job, I branched out and started applying for any job I thought I could survive on. I applied for a receptionist’s job at an animal hospital; to deliver auto parts; I applied for communications jobs with non-profit organizations, universities, hospitals and school systems. I applied for secretarial jobs and felt confident that, if nothing else, I could squeeze out a living working at a certain fast food restaurant. Not the case —many of those offer only a few hours per week.

Most application processes are now online, and applications seem to travel into an abyss from which they never surface. Applications were hardly ever acknowledged, in-person interviews were few and far between, and many advertised openings were either filled from within a company or given to new college grads.

Experience and proven ability seemed to be worthless.

Frustration slowly gave way to incapacitating depression. Money began to run out and debts began to pile up. And still I worked the equivalent of nearly full-time hours in my quest to find employment.

With my life imploding, a couple of weeks ago I put out a message of desperation to a select group of friends and acquaintances. I asked for financial help, prayers and some job networking assistance.

I received help on all three levels, the combination of which resulted in straightening out a few financial difficulties, a renewed faith in both mankind and my Savior and a new job, which I started Feb. 1.

Which brings me to how I started this post in the first place.

While I place -30- on my journalism career, I am thankful to be able to put -more- on my working life.

Thanks to a family-owned company having full faith in me to perform some job duties I’ve never done before, I will be able to again feel needed by and worthwhile to society.

The irony of landing a job where owners valued me for my intelligence, work ethic and attention to detail, despite having never performed the specific tasks of the job opening, while journalism slammed the door on a proven track record, isn’t lost on me.

Journalism turned its back on me and I will do everything in my power to make that rejection work to the benefit of my new employers who haven’t lost sight of the big picture and what should be truly valued in an employee.

While journalism is hiring 22-year-old reporters and 30-year-old editors, my new company hired me to replace a 70-something.

Sure says something, doesn’t it?

-30-