A lot of people know this already, but I spent over 10 years in journalism. I won awards for not only my writing, photography and designs, but toward the end of 2017, my heart just wasn’t in it anymore. In July 2018, I took a job in marketing and I honestly haven’t looked back.

Why?

Because most journalism sucks now.

Newspapers, which is what made me fall in love with journalism, are full of nothing but advertisements because that’s what keeps the newspapers running. That, or they are in the pockets of local government and not wanting to report on real news.

It was always my dream to write for Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly or something like that. I’ll be honest, I neve came close. Yes I got to interview people like Luke Bryan or James Aldean or legendary actors like Scott Wilson, but it was never my full time job and when I did come very close to having that as my full time gig, it was taken away. The new “editor” was an alcoholic who sat around and told us about her sex life after coming to the newsroom at night, drunk, and then wrote us up when we were late with our deadlines because she made us listen to her.

Yes, that really happened at one of my past jobs.

That was the beginning of the bad taste in my mouth, but to be honest, it was all I knew at the time, so I took another newspaper job.

Now a days, I sit and roll my eyes at people who write for People Magazine or Us Weekly who do not do their research before writing an article. Because you know, the Backstreet Boys had to cancel their reunion tour due to the pandemic or someone who thinks Nick Lachey is a former member of 98 Degrees. Sometimes I wonder how these people got their jobs. Did they never learn to research? Hell, all it would take is to look at Wikipedia.

There will probably always be a part of me that looks at an article and know that I could do a better job at it. But the fact that these news outlets hire people who aren’t worthy of the jobs because they obviously don’t know the basics of journalism, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

And it probably won’t be one I’ll get over anytime soon.