25
Jan
2010
The Batting Cage
A fellow King’s College grad and now (sometimes) working journalist, was kind enough to share his thoughts on the job prospects in Nova Scotia.
I sent him a message shortly after returning from travelling on the most credible of communication avenues, facebook. I wanted to suss out the enemy before heading into battle.
He got back to me with the following report:
Angelina,
I am well, despite unemployment.
I’m here in Halifax, and I’ve been writing intermittently while looking for more permanent employment. Articles off/on for Metro and occasionally The Coast, plus a weekly column for Spacing Atlantic (which doesn’t pay, but gives me some online cred and allows me to write How I Want To write). Even some fiction (!) when the mood strikes.
Fort McMurray (He worked at a small-town Alberta paper last summer) was a joke, but good experience. Terrible experience, but good experience, dig? I worked the Crime and Entertainment beats. Ha.
It’s not sad that you’ll work anywhere. It’s a reflection of the times. I used to be picky. Those days are long gone. I’m looking for anything that involves me using half my brain, and a lot of things that will not involve that.
And I’m not anything like a journalism expert, I just lucked into a few gigs. But honestly, I’m rather disenfranchised with the whole thing. If skilled young bucks who will work for peanuts a year are languishing in their respective unemployed malaises (mailaisii?), while people like Thomas Friedman jet around the world to produce a book based on a cliche, why bother?
That’s at my most cynical. But every time I find myself in a news room for a day or two of paid work (so, maybe once a month), I remember how good that feels, and it almost feels worth it.
So, there are my things to tell.
Now Italy – politically screwed up, or irrevocably politically screwed up?
But seriously, I’d prefer to hear about your life right now. What has it been, a year?
Well, I hope he’s been reading this blog. I’m sure his misery would love my company.