Kvetching--a great journalistic tradition

I'm certainly among the last reporters to write or comment about AngryJournalist.com, but I still think I can throw some thoughts out there. Primarily, I'd like to offer a half-baked theory to explain why the site has been so successful---that is, success measured in terms of hits, posts, etc.

Here it is: good journalists cannot flip the switch.

The "switch" refers to the difference between two methods of living & working. The first method is how most professions demand that its workers conduct themselves---normally. Even in today's 24-hour work cycle, most workers still punch the metaphorical clock. Even if they're workaholics, the nature of their work is always directed outward, on the project or matter at hand. Work is work, family is family, and usually that separation stands up over time.

The second method is how journalism requires reporters to conduct themselves---hungry to dig up information, knock down walls and analyze disparate or complex stories. This requires reporters, in many instances, to become bastards. Sure, we can sound polite on the phone, but the fact remains that we're always trying to get information. If someone is forthcoming with that information, we're always trying to leverage them for more. If someone isn't forthcoming, then we're digging all around them so that they'll have no choice but to give it to us.

In grad school, a classmate became catatonic in her car before interviewing a tough source. She called our professor---a grizzled yet polished veteran editor and reporter for the Mercury News---for advice. "I have to be honest with you," she told him. "I'm scared out of my mind to talk to this guy." "I hear you," he responded. "But if you don't talk to him, you don't have a story. So take a deep breath or suck it up or do whatever you do--and get out of the damn car." Everyone in class---including the student---agreed. The professor was right to talk to her this way.

Then comes deadline. We have no time to atone for our rough edges. We have to make some words. And we do so with manic energy.

Anyone who lasts as a reporter for more than one month will admit it: the whole process revs us up. Few other professions require its workers to step out of their comfort zones so consistently, and simultaneously demand the quick, difficult analysis of writing on top of it all. Few professions also deliver such satisfaction when the process is done right. And the only way to survive is to keep your engine revved so that you're ready to do it right at all times---ready for any story, any moment.

Small wonder, then, that reporters can't help themselves from the type of kvetching that they suppy to AngryJournalist. The state of the media today is convoluted, indefinite, and often times antagonistic. Just like the stories we usually report. We can't very well report the world in one manner, and report on our own experience as reporters in another.

Like I say, we can't flip that switch. And readers wouldn't want us to flip it, because the consequence would be soft articles, press releases rehashed into briefs, and stories that stop after a couple of passes instead of prying open the real stories beneath the surface.

The salient question, however, isn't how or why we kvetch about our tough times in journalism. It's whether we should be doing it to such a degree. What good is complaining unless you propose some solutions---and then act on them?

No good at all, of course. The former is navel gazing; the latter is gettin' it done.