Fear and Loathing in the Fourth Estate

First Newsweek tells me I'll never get rich off my blog, now The Wall Street Journal says local TV stations are facing uncertain futures. Thanks, Team Obvious! What's next - an eye opening report on the dearth of working phone booths? I hear the fax machine industry is on the ropes, too, Better make some calls! A-HEM. Sorry if I sound a bit peevish, but it's getting hard out there for a pimp - and by pimp I mean 42 year old suburbanite who makes his living with a video-camera. Once upon a time my mastery of heavy glass assured me plenty of work and all the logo-wear I could stomach wearing. These days it often earns me the derision of Generation Laptop, who look down their nose-rings at my full-sized rig and ask why anyone would still use such a large, cumbersome camera. There are several answers to that question, but none more satisfying than a certain hand gesture. I rarely bother with either reply though, as we lenslingers have more important things to worry about: like how to stay employed...

But it's not just us shooter-types who are worried about the future. Wander into your local broadcast newsroom and pop a balloon. Chances are someone's gonna wet their pants! But that's not incontinence you're smelling. It's the palpable funk of fear, that aromatic sensation that the other shoe is about to drop. That dread of downsizing has rattled us all: the well-paid main anchor who doesn't take those 2 hour dinner breaks every night anymore, the daydreaming associate producer who's finally learning to edit, that overly verbose photog who thinks he's a freakin' poet! We're all nervous -not just because budgets have dried up, but because life as we know it just may cease to be. If that sounds overblown, you haven't lunched with many broadcast vets lately. I have - and I can tell you they're lousy tippers! But who can blame them... us... you? For every colleague who's lost his job, hundreds more are afraid they'll join them on the beach. If that ain't shocking enough, consider this: Larry King still has a nine o clock time slot! That's just cra-zee...

Then again, not a lot makes sense right now. Consumers continue to hang hi-def plasma-fatties above their fireplaces while News Directors the world over hand out baked-potato cams to twenty-somethings and call 'em pioneers. What will this practice ensure - besides some ugly ass footage? Why are you asking me? I drive around with tools in my hatchback, for God's sake! Okay, okay, I'll take a crack at it. The democratization of the evening news will further erode The Fourth Estate. Already, more recent grads can identify Kanye West's late mother than some stuffed shirt by the name of Edward R. Murrow. As all thoughts of proper camera management fall by the wayside, TV news will shed every vestige of cinema. Soon broadcast journalism just won't be something you'll waste on your wide screen. If you watch it all, it'll be on your iPod wristwatch - or maybe you'll give the news a glance on the side of your toaster. You know, the one that comes with it's own Wi-Fi YouTube channel - yet still burns your morning bagel? Yeah, that one.

Now, as for blogging not making you rich: Anyone who thinks their cyber-diatribes will bring them anything but a false sensation of being red is beyond pathetic. Trust me, I sit up every night speed-typing whatever runs through my head. I know pathetic.