"There's no future in it."

Meandering around the Kosphere today, I found this great diary about the state of journalism. It brought back some memories about my own stint in the publishing, broadcast and print worlds.

I particularly remembered a story about my last encounter with my grandfather.

Toward the end of my journalistic career, I went to pay a visit to grandpa Edwin, who was dying. He asked me what stories I was working on, who were my best reporters (I was an editor and reporter), what I thought of the Lewinsky scandal etc. (this was in the late '90's).

After going through the niceties, he cracked a wry smile - my grandpa was a total prankster - and said, "So. When you going to settle down and pick a career?"

I was pissed at first, but gave the old man his due and asked him what he meant. "I'm a journalist, pops. I have a good career."

He smiled again, and said, "Son, you have a job. But journalism - there's no future in it."

I had to stop and think about what he meant. Grandpa was in business, one of those classic Russian immigrants who, with his brothers, built a small kingdom from the dirt. I knew well enough to take him seriously - the old man had really been there, done that.

I pondered his statement for a while, and then we moved on to other topics. But now, looking back, I see how prescient and wise his words were. He didn't just mean there was no future in journalism for ME - you can barely make a living as a reporter, even at the top tier - he meant just what this diarist has captured: that the whole field had no regard for the future; it's all about today. Amazing that he was able to convey that to me on his death bed.

If you look at the average reporter's depth of understanding, you could see that Grandpa's judgment also applies to the past: there is no history in journalism, either; no one in the MSM seems to remember what happened last week, let alone last year. Hence, the shady characters in power are free to repeat old mistakes, parrot bold-faced lies, and propagandize the public with little fear of being caught.

Sure, we can look to the New Yorker and Atlantic and Harper's and etc. for some depth of field, but small, niche publications are no way to keep a democracy in check.

Grandpa died in the spring of '99, and I left journalism in Decmber of '00, just after Bush was appointed President.

I decided that, rather than run around like a chicken with my head cut off, chasing shadows and beating the competition, I wanted to make a difference.

I suppose that's what's missing from journalism these days: when I started, all my colleagues were commited to the truth, to hot scoops about abuses of power by the powerful, not fluff pieces about the temporarily famous. We were activists, but not in the political sense: we knew our role was to afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted - regardless of party affiliation or position in the American caste system.

Now I've taken a job where I can do that sort of work every day. Ironically, I'm still in media, but I suspect I'll never practice journalism again - Grandpa was right. There's no future in it.