My mom would make offhand references to "come the revolution" when I was growing up. I'm not going to say she went out of her way to suggest that would yet skip a generation, but if she knew it would hit me, she was hiding it well.
She was a Democrat, to the point of being part of a few campaigns for congressmen and senators. My dad, on the other hand, was fully on board with the Thatcher/Reagan trickle-down mindset. Why Thatcher first? We didn't have a portrait of Reagan in the office.
We were nonetheless a family that got invited to things. The Christmas party with Sandra Day O'Connor every year. Gubernatorial candidates from both parties would show up on off years.
When you grow up like this, it's very easy to believe the system is working for everyone. College was paid for, even though I never finished. The experience of going into debt would wait a few years. And then, the layoffs.
At this point, the only reasons I'm not totally fucked are I work freelance and can't be found. I've not talked with the friend whose address I use in months on account of creditors showing up at 9 p.m. attempting to serve papers. His kids go to bed at 8, so I get it.
But what has sprung from this is a drastic shift without a clutch (ask your parents) from thinking being part of the system was the best outlet to effect change to having zero belief the system can be changed. Sure, it can be, but we'll get the same results, just slightly less lemon.
I don't think you can get much more establishment than aspiring to The Washington Post. I still have an April 2003 A1 where I moved a hed after the AME/News came down to review my redesign, 18 months out of college and without a degree, and invited me up for a night on the desk. It sounded a lot more impressive at 23, I'll grant.
He'd then tell me in Savannah, Ga., over a beer at the hotel bar that he thought I was Post material, but I needed to get the immature shit out of my system, first. Ahead of the Post contingent and me piling into a car where the main topic was "what bullshit did Woodward pull today?" Seriously, consider hearing this conversation less than a year into your career in journalism.
I believed in it back then. I can't now. And to be honest, it's broken me of having a full eight hours to devote to the craft. I'm lucky to have four hours before by brain says no.
What the Post and L.A. Times have done may look bad externally; internally, I assure you it looks worse. NYT thankfully showed its true colours quite some time back, so this was more waiting for shoes to drop.
I did not join Beehaw to change the world. I joined my school paper to do that.
And, well, now Gannett owns everything. You can't even sell efficiencies to managers there, since they need bad data to justify their jobs.
There is no solution here within the scope of the current economic model. So, congratulations, deregulated capitalism, you fucking turned someone raised to accept you. I suspect many others have something to say.
