Journalism in the 21st Century

The subject of today's blog post wasn't hard to come up with: I recently made the decision to relocate for a job opportunity. However, even nearly two weeks into the job I'm still grappling with how to explain my decision-making process. It's sort of like someone throws you in a forest and tells you to find your way back to camp. You know you were at camp; you know you're only 3 miles away; but you also know you don't recognize anything where you are. Moving is one of the most stressful experiences in life, and so is taking a new job. Combined, you might as well get a divorce or grieve the loss of your puppy. I haven't researched this, but I imagine it's even harder as one ages. When I was 39 I drove across the country for a job in New York. It had been my lifelong dream to work in the Big Apple, having grown up on Woody Allen movies and fancied myself a kind of Mariel Hemingway-esque character. I would grow sophisticated on the Upper East Side and le...

Journalists are tasked with holding persons in positions of power accountable. We are also supposed to remain objective at all times, at least when we're on the job. This is probably easier for print journalists who can scowl or laugh with colleagues behind closed doors as they hammer out their latest treatise for print or online consumption. Broadcast journalists have a steeper hill to climb, though, and that has never been more apparent than during the Trump era. While CNN's Wolf Blitzer does a sterling job keeping a poker face, Anderson Cooper recently and famously rolled his eyes when speaking to Kellyanne Conway and Jake Tapper frequently smirks during interviews. CNN has a history of hiring reporters whose emotions are easy to read. Remember the Piers Morgan era and his passion for gun control? What about Don Lemon getting so drunk on New Year's Eve that it was embarrassing to watch? While these issues, one can argue, are morally poles apart from a journalistic pers...