Competition—The Bean Counters are killing it …And that takes the thrill out of being a journalist

Read the other day that now TV stations are going to pool resources, so no matter what channel you turn to, the coverage will be the same.
That’s something that’s hit our local print media. I never thought I’d see a Plain Dealer byline in the BJ.
And not just a rewrite (don’t know if rewrite people exist anymore)…but also the complete story with credit to the paper on the lake.
So reporters, reporters and editors will not have that exhilaration feeling that comes with one-upmanship on the competition.
It’s a feeling that starts in your toes (you feel like dancing) and spreads upward until you want to yell: “we’re first…!!!! We scored a big one that time….
In the old days (I know old codgers always look back at the old days when newspapers were run by journalist and not businessmen who wouldn’t know a pica from type lice.
On my first paper, the afternoon paper and the morning paper (mine) were owned by the same family and the two crews shared desks. The right bunch of drawers belong to the afternoon shift, my drawers were on the right side.
And you didn’t dare put anything in the drawers that might give the afternoon folks a lead on a story.
One time, I happened to look in the wastebasket and found a bunch of letters torn into strips. I dug them out and put them together.
They were hometown releases on service folks that the armed services mail to newspaper.
Getting them all together in readable form, I typed them up and turned them in. Turned out the after folks had written their own story for the next day and then tore up the forms.
Even something like that give you a great feeling.
And if a big story came along… why you’d drink a toast at the local bar.
On this same morning paper, the one photog was married to an afternoon reporter. I don’t think it was intentional, but when he took photos for a Sunday feature I was doing, his wife would come up with a few paragraphs that took the edge off the Sunday story.
So I grabbed a 4x5 Speed Graphic and started taking my own pictures..and processing them myself.
In addition to my reporting duties, I would up eventually as the morning paper’s photographer, too.
So thanks Bean Counters—you’ve killed a big reason for becoming a journalist.