The Media's Lost Generation
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The Media's Lost Generation
How do you get ahead in an industry that can’t see its own future?
Posted Sunday, April 19, 2009 - 10:25pm
Last month, a media executive met with a headhunter to plan his next career move. With years of experience at a major media organization, the executive figured that he had some good ammo to jump to the next level, even in the current economic climate.
The meeting did not go well.
"The headhunter essentially told me not to even bother trying," says the executive. "He told me, ‘The old media model is broken.' The message was that there really isn't a next step to take."
Like many industries, the mainstream media—newspaper and magazine companies in particular—have been ravaged by the recession and the infringing Internet over the last six months. Professional viability in this brave new world has become akin to winning a high-stakes game of musical chairs. The media business has always been a deeply competitive bastion of ambition; yet today's journalists—including both those sidelined by layoffs and those still clinging desperately their workplace desks—have been left to wonder whether the very idea of ambition makes sense anymore.
"How do you progress in an industry that has no clear path to anywhere?" asked Glynnis MacNicol, a media analyst and editor of FishbowlNY. "Right now, the definition of success in the media is not to be unemployed."
Just a year ago, media careers still had clear, relatively linear trajectories. If you worked in publications, you started as an editorial assistant and worked your way up the ranks of editorships until you reached a grand prize. In television news, you started as a desk assistant and progressed from there; in 10 years, you could be a senior producer, correspondent, or even in senior management.
(Photograph of a man climbing a ladder by John Foxx/Stockbyte/Getty Creative Images)
Comments
The Media's Lost Generation
The traditional media model has not buckled! It has been corrupted like our Constitution! It's not going to take some college kid with a new model to "fix" the news media! Just get back to the original purpose of the media model..........honest, fair & unbiased presentation of facts!
When I was about 10 years old I read a copy of the National Enquirer my mom had lying around. (pun intended) Even at that young age I knew that most of what was written there could not be trusted. Back then, mainstream news media still had some semblance of honesty and integrity. That same mainstream news media today looks more like the National Enquirer did when I was 10 years old. It's disgusting and there are not enough minutes left in my life to waste one of them on the mainstream news media.
You need editors and producers that can suppress the idealism, extremism, activism and ego of their so called journalists. Only then will you attract enough viewers, subscribers and *advertisers* to allow someone to once again aspire to be the style editor for the NY Times! Give me the honest, unbiased facts and allow *me* to think rather than telling me *what* to think!
Your "business model" for success already exists in your own archives!
IS
The Media's Lost Generation
The traditional media model has not buckled! It has been corrupted like our Constitution! It's not going to take some college kid with a new model to "fix" the news media! Just get back to the original purpose of the media model..........honest, fair & unbiased presentation of facts!
When I was about 10 years old I read a copy of the National Enquirer my mom had lying around. (pun intended) Even at that young age I knew that most of what was written there could not be trusted. Back then, mainstream news media still had some semblance of honesty and integrity. That same mainstream news media today looks more like the National Enquirer did when I was 10 years old. It's disgusting and there are not enough minutes left in my life to waste one of them on the mainstream news media.
You need editors and producers that can suppress the idealism, extremism, activism and ego of their so called journalists. Only then will you attract enough viewers, subscribers and *advertisers* to allow someone to once again aspire to be the style editor for the NY Times! Give me the honest, unbiased facts and allow *me* to think rather than telling me *what* to think!
Your "business model" for success already exists in your own archives!
IS
Re: the headhunter who said,
Re: the headhunter who said, ‘The old media model is broken,' I'd tell the exec to get a new headhunter. Yeah, times are epically bad, but a good placement person should have been able to advise him what new digital skills to acquire at his level in order to make progress. It's true that nothing is guaranteed now, at any level, no matter how senior, but that doesn't mean there is no progress to be made. And if the exec wants to even keep the job he has, he'll need to keep learning. That's the reality for all of us.
The Wrong Priorities
"When I went to school, it was about, ‘afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted,' " says Michael Caruso, a former editor at the Village Voice, Vanity Fair, Details, and many other magazines. "You wanted to keep the government honest. Today the goals are different. It's mostly about self-expression."
I think that the above, as much as the economy and the Internet, goes a long way to explain why people are losing interest in the old media. When you started reading the news to be informed, it's discouraging and frustrating to see the media dominated by people who went into reporting primarily to stroke their own egos.
Anyone aspiring to journalism should remember this: yes, it's about keeping the government honest, and it's also about keeping the public informed. It is NOT about seeing your name in print.
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this is a nice comment media forget his responsibility media is the best way to find news so it is necessary that media takes his responsibility.