Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Old friends, wasted talent

Was conversing online with a former colleague who is also recently out of a newspaper job. After I disconnected and had a chance to think, it seems so sad and wasteful that so many talented people (and I'm not talking about myself here because I would have been retired now and there are plenty more talented people than me) floating around out there without a beat to cover.

Politicians and others who need serious watching must be reveling in the thought that the field is now open for them to play their games with only a small chance of being caught.

Many of the folks left behind in the business are more than capable and talented of doing the work, but with so few of them I can't help but believe a lot is going to go unreported.

With some of our difficult family issues starting to settle a little, I hope to start back at looking at my former career and the careers of others and live up to the title of this blog and start writing again.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jim, a former Flint Journal news staff person, MB, had moved to the Flint area convention bureau and just announced he was leaving which meant that most of the former news staff from the FJ applied for his job. What's most interesting is that they gave the job to his wife, who already had a job. So all those staffers out of work are still out of work and someone with a job, gets a job. Imagine how that feels.

Jim of L-Town said...

Just heard about this Friday. More than keeping the unemployed, unemployed is what it may say about how things are going at the Journal.

If a top editor is looking to bail, things can't be looking too rosy at the old place.

I understand that MB is now with the Michigan Municipal League.


I feel for those who are unemployed though.