Look, we don’t like it when anyone — well, almost anyone — loses their job. But while journalists with job security keep trying to depict lockdown protesters as Grandma killers and not people who have lost their livelihood and are hitting food banks for the first time while just wanting to return to work, it’s with a mixed sympathy that we hear about journalism jobs disappearing during the recession.
The BuzzFeed News Union announced in a thread earlier this week that losing a job in journalism now could end a reporter’s career.
Losing a newsroom job now isn’t just a temporary setback. For many colleagues let go, this could be the end of their careers in journalism — all the more calamitous when the work journalists do has never been more important.
— BuzzFeed News Union ✊ (@bfnewsunion) May 12, 2020
BuzzFeed News senior reporter Venessa Wong echoed that sentiment.
Since the last recession, ~30,000 journalism jobs vanished. Journalists laid off today will likely be unemployed for months and likely, by necessity, have to find employment in other fields. A lay-off now would effectively end a career in journalism. We have to save jobs. https://t.co/rXzjQVQXv5
— Venessa Wong (@venessawong) May 13, 2020
We’re doing our best to feel sympathetic, but it’s tough when it seems like journalists, who should know better than anyone, don’t realize that a lot of people’s jobs and small businesses aren’t coming back, especially as the coronavirus lockdown keeps getting extended in some states. Are we supposed to feel especially bad for journalists? Moreso than coal miners? Maybe they can learn to c**e too?
Most of us are glad that you'll get to experience some of the pain of those who haven't been able to work from home and still get paid.
Perhaps you'll learn a little empathy for those who don't have your advantages. I seriously doubt it, but hope I'm wrong.
— American ?? Purrl, RN (@AmericanPurrl) May 13, 2020
Learn to code
— Derriere Detecto (@DitkaDelecto) May 13, 2020
Learn some Java, bros.
— Andrew Cuomo's pierced nipple (@CockhitchAlfred) May 13, 2020
Here, for future reference: https://t.co/8UlaIcSvw1
— Courtland Garret (@CourtlandGarret) May 13, 2020
You poor things. Maybe a little less Steele dossier and a little more actual news would have gotten you somewhere?
— Quarantined Ego (@MyAlteredEgo) May 13, 2020
Oh, So NOW it’s important for people to be able to work? I see how you are. We all see how you are.
— Jlisa (@Jlisa42067) May 13, 2020
Interesting how this matters to you now, as opposed to after the 30 million already losing their jobs due to this ridiculous lockdown.
— Το Kang δεν είναι το πραγματικό μου όνομα (@KangofSeattle) May 13, 2020
I was told complaining about losing your job during the Coronavirus pandemic was selfish and greedy and evil and means you want people to die.
Was this not so?
— Attila the Honeybun. (@TimMansplainsIt) May 13, 2020
Wonder how many of those 30,000 kept telling us to "stay home and save lives?"
Not zero, I'd bet.
— Aldous Huxley's Ghost™ (@AF632) May 13, 2020
I am trying to feel bad, but they have been consistently trying to scare the public. Karma.
— susan price (@sbprice) May 13, 2020
How many lamented the loss of manufacturing jobs to China or the importation of workers to replace Americans here?
— Drew (@drewgrey) May 13, 2020
You built that.
— ?? Angie (@AngieNC3) May 13, 2020
Dig a hole,put the seed in it, the plant comes up. Y’all could be farmers.
— F. Warren Zevon (@FWarrenZevon) May 13, 2020
What was it that one of your peers once said to me after I was laid off and out of work for 18 months?
£earn T0 ¢ode?
It’s not journalism that you practice, it’s partisan narrative pushing, hoax driven panic, political narratives. You caused your own demise.
“Journalism” pic.twitter.com/L3T31Q6xLL
— LeoTrollstoy© (@SpaceForThePapa) May 14, 2020
When it's about YOUR job it's a crisis but screw all those other people who have been out of work for 2 months already right? pic.twitter.com/sdHT5DoWlV
— Lesa Carroll (@Absolut_Boston) May 14, 2020
Millions of people have lost their jobs in countless other fields. Their jobs mattered as well. But anyone who dared to bring that up was accused of “killing grandma” or being told that it was just “the new normal.” Honest question: did you give a shit about saving those jobs?
— To Will a Mockingbird (@wharrison51) May 13, 2020
— Fiddmeister (@Fiddmeister) May 13, 2020
They could always learn to code.
Oh wait, I'm told that's insensitive.
They could always go get an essential job.
— Jeff Germann (@Jeff_Germann) May 13, 2020
It is funny how the economic side is becoming more important to them now that their paychecks are threatened.
— Hormel Chavez (@ItsHormelChavez) May 13, 2020
I'm a journalist. So are millions of other randos with Twitter accounts speaking the truth.
These people being laid off aren't journalists. They're professional activists.
Good riddance. Your "job" was always unethical.
— Ricardo Valesquez (@RickyDelFuego) May 13, 2020
Gosh, maybe now that they aren't getting a paycheck they'll see that pushing panic porn is destroying the social fabric of this country.
— Julie Adamen (@julieadamen) May 13, 2020
YOU JUST WANT GRANDMA TO DIE.
— Ya FriendlyNeighborhood Crazee™? (@Crazizzle) May 13, 2020
Has it occurred to you that this is market forces? If journalists did their job as the fourth estate instead of trying to be 'brands', and people trusted them, they would be guaranteed jobs.
— a tabby in quarantineland (@robo_tabby) May 13, 2020
They're nonessential.
— Marty (@ThatMartyGuy1) May 13, 2020
You’re not wong.
— Joey (@JoeyStalin1917) May 13, 2020
Oh, so now that "journalists" are being affected, "We have to save jobs." That is rich, after the unsympathetic (often nasty) media coverage of protests by Americans who only want to go back to work to feed their families. If anyone deserves to be out of work, it's "journalists."
— KCarlson: Credulous Boomer Rube (@Quintlexia) May 13, 2020
Journalism isn't supposed to be a make-work for people who did really well at writing term papers. It's supposed to be for people with some degree of ethics who want the truth known. There are too many journalists employed, right now, as it is.
— Sarah Rachel Jacobs, #TurbulentStream (@QueenSarahSatur) May 13, 2020
It would help if the public trusted you guys.
— Greg in Seattle (@GregFromBallard) May 13, 2020
Unemployment is at 14%, businesses are folding, there are food shortages and cities are locking people in their homes for another 3 months but let's focus on the real victims here. It's all about journalists.
— Johnny Utah (@JohnnyU2019) May 13, 2020
Oh. NOW you have to save jobs.
Bye Felicia.
— Fiddmeister (@Fiddmeister) May 13, 2020
I can feel compassion for the pain of job loss while also acknowledging: if there is any industry that America deserves a respite from, it's clickbait journalism. Let a cleansing fire burn through it all.
— Kerfuffle Actual ??? (@shoshido) May 13, 2020
— Dar of the Amashites?? (@Bugs_Meany) May 13, 2020
As if you care about anyone else who has lost their job. pic.twitter.com/8mOPFUTQ86
— Opinionated Witch (@smokenashes911) May 13, 2020
Let's open up H1-B Visa applicants to back fill all those "journalist" positions. I mean, it works so well for everyone else who has worked their entire life and has to train heir replacement because of imported cheap labor, why not media?
— Mel Kerner (@MelKerner) May 13, 2020
Not as much concern when waitresses and bartenders were losing theirs, though.
— Quantum Flux, PhD. (@QuantumFlux1964) May 13, 2020
Probably should’ve done more journalism instead of screeching “orange man bad” every minute of every hour of every day for the last four years.
— Igor the Hunter of Beasts (@StoneAgeHunter) May 13, 2020
"A lay-off now would effectively end a career in journalism."
That's such a shame.
The journos that have to live like the rest of us might actually be more objective.— Capt. Anton Zilwicki, RMN (@antonzilwicky54) May 13, 2020
We’re certain we’d feel more empathy is journalists hadn’t expected to have been treated as a special protected class for so many years.
Related:
'FFS get him away from people'! Guys, Joe Biden basically just said that miners should 'learn to code' https://t.co/p05QUMf4HE
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) December 30, 2019
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