Four in the morning

1. Twenty-eight-year old Pulitzer winner uses his prize money to establish a fund for rural reporters. IRJ

2. Las Vegas Review-Journal defends its practice of suing over alleged copyright violations. LV Sun

3. Thank god someone is finally giving corporations a chance to be heard. Forbes will run corporate/marketing/advertising blogs alongside staff blogs to make sure these afflicted get the comfort they so sorely need. AdAge

4. I guess since so many journalists have already left, Sidney Harman won't have to fire that many people at Newsweek. Poynter

The stress factor

"News reporter" places #4 on the Forbes list of "stressful jobs that pay badly." Of those surveyed, 62 percent described the job as stressful and the median pay is calculated at $32,900 a year.

Here's the Forbes summary:

Every minute is another deadline for those who report and write the news. While racing against the clock, reporters gather data, conduct interviews and analyze their findings all before writing about major events for a newspaper, magazine, radio show or television program.

As the industry implodes and pink slips fall like rain, are deadlines really the most stressful part of the job? How about the occasional inability to pay a bill on time? Or the frustration that comes knowing good work might never pay off?

Incidentally, the best job on the list is systems engineer (median pay: $87,100), followed by physician assistant ($90,900) and college professor ($70,400).

In search of authority

Writing in the American Spectator, James Srodes, former Washington bureau chief for Forbes, says good riddance to newspapers, "an industry that has outdone Detroit in wasting its franchise". He says journalism got taken over by "cretins" who thought they were manufacturing a product and forgot they were providing a service.

Srodes writes:

In manufacturing, say widgets, if you can make the same number of widgets with fewer workers and a leaner mix of raw materials the productivity gain will translate into expanded profits. But if one starts watering down a service with fewer providers, with stingier resources, and empty information calories instead of the news nourishment consumers want, well then one deserves what one gets.

So when once-great newspapers (and I count the Washington Post among them) systematically empty their newsroom of truly first-class news gatherers, and when the product that results is the work of lower-wage naifs who lack sources and perspective, who confuse skepticism with partisanship, who substitute snark for insight, then what in the pluperfect hell does management expect to happen? Why should advertisers spend their dollars pitching to a room that is rapidly emptying of potential customers?