As near as I can tell, none of my grandchildren who are old enough to think about such things want to be a journalist at this point.
Only one of my six children chose that option. Both of my ex-wives worked as journalists, so its' not like the subsequent generations didn't know what they would be getting into.
So they've chosen not to.
All over the U.S. since the dawn of the Internet, journalists have been losing their jobs as traditional media organizations have gone out of business, creating news deserts in places that used to be saved by home-town newspapers.
As websites crop up to replace them, one fundamental problem emerges: How will they pay for their reporters?
Advertising is the traditional revenue source along with subscriptions and newsstand sales, but in the online world, advertising revenue is dominated by Google (29 percent), Facebook (25) and Amazon (10).
You have to go a long way down the lost of top digital ad earners before you find any traditional media companies.
The solution for many local news companies is a paywall -- charging users for access to their content but this rarely works in accomplishing anything but severely limiting the audience.
Even many of the news links I list below land smack up against paywalls, and I doubt many readers go any further at that point.
Subscriptions are an option, as that gives the choice over to the user, but a gain, adoption is extremely limited. Few people believe they can afford many subscriptions, no matter how much they value the content of an individual site or writer.
Meanwhile, our elite journalism schools churn out would-be journalists year after year, so where will they go?
***
FRIDAY'S HEADLINES:
* New Covid infections on the rise in most states (USA Today)
* What We Know So Far About Waning Vaccine Effectiveness -- Vaccines still offer strong protection against severe Covid-19, but many studies show their protection against infection decreases over time. (NYT)
* A veteran helped spread viral 9/11 conspiracy theories. Can he start over?-- Twenty years after enlisting in the Army, one man wrestles with the power stories have to heal and to destroy. (WP)
* What It's Like to Fight a Megafire (New Yorker)
* What Climate Change Looks Like From Space -- The impact is etched on land and ice across the planet. (NYT)
* Europe has become the epicenter of the pandemic again, prompting some governments to consider re-imposing unpopular lockdowns in the run-up to Christmas and stirring debate over whether vaccinesalone are enough to tame COVID-19. (Reuters)
* What Paul McCartney and John Lennon Talked About in Their Last Conversation (Howard Stern Show)
* The 13 House Republicans who voted to pass a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill say they've been getting death threats after former President Donald Trump lashed out about them. “This madness has to stop,” said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), an 18-term moderate, who said his offices received dozens of threatening calls following his yes vote. [AP]
* Afghanistan Facing Famine (Human Rights Watch)
* American journalist Danny Fenster sentenced to 11 years in jail in Myanmar (WP)
* An explosion hit a mosque in the Spin Ghar district of Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan, wounding at least 12 people including the imam of the mosque, local residents said. (Reuters)
* Substitute Teachers Never Got Much Respect, but Now They Are in Demand (NYT)
* ‘It’s our lifeline’: the Taliban are back but Afghans say opium is here to stay (Guardian)
* Cities with empty offices see new room to expand housing (Politico)
* S.Korea shows flying taxi test (NHK)
* Rare 520-year-old coin found at site of first English settlement in Newfoundland (BBC)
* World’s ‘calamitous’ water crisis being ignored in climate talks (Guardian)
* Sharks spotted in Thames river that runs through London (The Hill)
* Japan raises bird-flu alert to highest level (NHK)
* Johnson & Johnson plans to split into two companies, separating its consumer health division that sells Band-Aids and Baby Powder from its pharmaceuticals and medical devices business in the biggest shake-up in its 135-year history. (Reuters)
* They live rent-free on SF Bay but their ‘floating homeless encampment’ faces extinction (LAT)
More than two dozen members of U.C. Berkeley’s football team caught the coronavirus despite 99 percent of its players being vaccinated. (AP)
* The false narrative of out-of-control crime in San Francisco is being pushed relentlessly by a far-right website run by a former Republican consultant who received a pardon from Trump. (Popular Information)
*What happened to Eric Clapton? The guitar legend’s covid turn has friends and fans puzzled. (WP)
* Would the world be better if it was run by teenagers? (BBC)
"Have You Heard the News"
Ain't it got too much
After the accident
It could feel no worse
I turned around and saw him hit the ground
A little earlier, it was a game
I guess the barrier
Must have dropped away
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