Barbara Ehrenreich: Welcome to a Dying Industry, J-School Grads

Barbara Ehrenreich: Welcome to a Dying Industry, J-School Grads

By Barbara Ehrenreich, AlterNet. Posted June 4, 2009.

Drop your sense of entitlement, Ehrenreich tells a graduating class of media makers, journalists are now "part of the working class."



The following is the text of Barbara Ehrenreich's commencement address on May 16 to the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism Class of 2009.

The dean gave me some very strict instructions about what to say today. No whining and no crying at the podium. No wringing of hands or gnashing of teeth. Be upbeat, be optimistic, he said -- adding that it wouldn't hurt to throw in a few tips about how to apply for food stamps.

So let's get the worst out of the way right up front: You are going to be trying to carve out a career in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. You are furthermore going to be trying to do so within what appears to be a dying industry. You have abundant skills and talents -- it's just not clear that anyone wants to pay you for them.

Well, you are not alone.

How do you think it feels to be an autoworker right now? And I've spent time with plenty of laid-off paper-mill workers, construction workers and miners. They've got skills; they've got experience. They just don't have jobs.

So let me be the first to say this to you: Welcome to the American working class. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/140442/barbara_ehrenreich%3A_welcome_to_a_dying_industry%2C_j-school_grads/

those two words sums up the future of journalism

"guerrilla journalism" true... but also MERCENARY journalism. Hired guns ala Faux to put out propaganda.

when were we ever NOT part of the working class? unless she's talking about the publishers, Murdochs and other media heads of the world which next to no one in that graduating class have any illusion of becoming...

thanks!

:kick:

Look at Democratic Underground. Lots of intelligent people writing...for no pay. Look at the Internet. Lots of published books, which people can read for no money. Newspapers that try to charge for reading Internet versions of their dead-tree editions lose money.

Writing will no longer be a skill anyone will pay money for. If you do it, it's like knowing how to play the piano; it's a way of amusing yourself, but you will never be paid a dime for it. (You might work for tips, not a living wage.)

And this will mean that there is no economic impetus to learn how to write well, so nobody will bother to learn.