Category: Media

 Would you consider your job the best around?

 Even though I very much like what I am doing, my job, or jobs actually, are nowhere near one of those considered the best in the country, according to CNNMoney.com. The online business magazine has listed what it considers the 100 best jobs in the country based upon salary, quality of life and job growth.

 I did a quick inventory of all the full-time and part-time jobs I have had since leaving high school 35 years ago. Compared with many who are perhaps 10 years or so older than I am, I imagine I look like a prize-winning job hopper.

 People used to have jobs and stay with them until they retire. These days, not so much. One major reason for job hopping today is because the company wants you to go so that they may restructure or self-destruct or whatever. Still, I have had six full-time jobs if you count the Navy, and my four newspaper jobs along with my current (struggling) career as a freelance writer as one job. I have also had four part-time jobs including my present one working for the government.

 Not one of the jobs I have or in which I have ever been employed are listed on that top 100 list. Here is a quick run-down of what I’ve done:

    Assembled boxes in a chicken processing plant. Whee!/Navy administrative/clerical worker/Professional firefighter (worked part-time for awhile moving mobile homes. Eeeeeh. and also had a part-time EMT job)/Regional EMS planner/Apartment maintenance worker/Vacuumer at car wash/part-time editor of monthly music magazine/Worked three part-time jobs — short-order cook, bartender and secret shopper (Dairy Queen detective)/Mental health worker/Journalist (editor, reporter, freelance writer)/part-time government job.

 It really looks worse than it is. Actually, when considering percentages, 82% of 35 years working have been with three jobs, providing you count the different stops I had as a journalist as one, and I do. But none of my jobs, as I said, were on the top 100 CNNMoney list. Well, it doesn’t matter. None of the jobs I held were what you call “money makers.” But I have spent 57% of my adult working life as a journalist, which is what I wanted to “be when I grew up.” Oh well, I got what I wanted to be while not necessarily growing up. So be it. And the two worst jobs: moving mobile homes and assembling boxes in a chicken plant. It takes a special breed for those jobs and I suppose I am a breed apart.

 I have said in numerous job interviews, and it is only partially blowing smoke up the interviewer’s ass, that while some might look negatively on my having worked so many jobs I feel that every experience I ever had helped me do the next job better.

 Speaking of longevity, I read in Elise Hu’s blog on Texas Tribune that long-long-time Associated Press photographer Harry Cabluck was one of those unfortunate few who were laid off yesterday during that wire service’s personnel purge.

 Hu notes that Harry, 71, was in the motorcade when JFK was shot in Dallas. He has been based in Austin for many years. A ton of tributes are being collected in Hu’s blog for Harry.

 I don’t know Harry well. I only was in his space twice. Once we talked for a few minutes on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives while waiting on something or the other. The other time was quite a bit longer.

 Harry and I were among press covering something at Fort Hood. He had left his car at the southern end of the post and we were up at the northern extreme. I gave him a lift and was entertained by Harry along the way. What I remember the most was his talking about some cohort or acquaintance of his — that and it was about a 20-minute drive and I really needed to use the bathroom. Harry said either the cohort or both of them used to spend time making up stories about people they would see — total strangers — while they were driving along. Harry gave some really funny examples while we were driving and, well, you had to have been there. I’m sure Harry doesn’t remember that although I understand he has a pretty good memory. I, however, do not.

 Best of luck to Harry Cabluck in his future.

 It isn’t often that I am encouraged by a defamation lawsuit. You see, I am pretty big into free speech, if you haven’t noticed. I also was once sued for defamation. It wasn’t pretty and the allegation wasn’t true. A federal judge booted the case out on its res gestae where it belonged.

 But the legal action I am talking about is one that could help erase the scourge that cheapens modern mass communication and raises the nation’s stupidity quotient. That would be hateful and libellous open comments on articles published on the Internet that are written by anonymous correspondents.

 The case involves a Kentucky attorney who is suing Kentucky.com, owned by the Lexington-Herald Leader. A person using a screen name allegedly made defamatory comments against this attorney. The lawyer is defending a man charged with murder and violating a domestic violence order. The attorney says she just wants the real name of the person who made the comments so that she may take further legal action. She is, however, seeking unspecified damages plus those for pain and suffering.

 The editor of the paper said the person making the comments was banned from the site and that the comments were removed. The paper is contacting that person to see if they want to invoke their rights to anonymous free speech.

 Lest you think I may show some hypocrisy here supporting other forms of free speech but not anonymous free speech, rest assured that I am not. But there are defamation laws and libel laws. That I know for sure and even though I may not like those laws when they are misused against me to dig into deeper pockets, I feel those statutes are there for long-held principles against bearing false witness against one’s neighbor.

 My agreement with this suit is for much less loftier reasons though. I simply am sick and tired of seeing a bunch of racist, ignorant, idiots dominate these comment boxes, saying what they want about whomever or whatever most often without facts to back them up.

 What is even worse are newspapers and other media platforms that use sites clumsily disguised as not a part of that media outlet which are used to start or build upon controversies employing subtle, but incitable material. See: race baiting.

 Newspapers, especially, should reflect the society that surrounds it. But papers should also mirror the respectfulness and good manners that are at the core of a civilized society.

 I don’t wish for any financial ruin for anyone in the aforementioned lawsuit. I also hope it don’t lead to judicial precedent that would threaten free anonymous speech. Sometimes, that is the only way some people can comment without facing some kind of physical or economic danger. But I do wish such an action could remind those with some sort of a media mouthpiece — be it The New York Times or eight feet deep — that anonymous speech need be responsible speech.

 Probably the best news I have heard from CNN lately is word that supposed “independent” but actually right-wing blowhard Hispanic-hater Lou Dobbs resigned as of last night.

 The network has announced that “State of the Union” host John King will take over the time slot left by Dobbs’ exit. It’s probably the best they can do right now. I like King immensely as a reporter. He has credentials that you don’t often find these days in the cable news biz, mainly that he was the main political  reporter for Associated Press.

 As an interviewer on a Sunday morning show like SOTU, King hasn’t really impressed me. Perhaps something like this hour slot will allow him to focus more solidly on subjects, thus finding something that will really showcase his reporting talents. I sure hope so. CNN needs to do something.

 There are less than a handful of anchors on CNN that I can watch these days. And their prime-time line-up up to now has positively stunk. You had Dobbs, a one-time respectable business reporter turned bigot loudmouth. Then came Campbell Brown, who just annoys the living hell out of me. Larry King, who should have retired to Miami decades ago. And Anderson Cooper. Need I say more?

 So I hope King does well in Dobbs’ time spot. As for Dobbs, I hope he runs for president on an independent ticket. He will be sure to take some of the nut-job votes away from the Republican candidate. (I wonder who he’d pick as his nut-job running mate, “Moose Girl” Sarah Palin or Minnesota Mental Midget U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Idiot Asylum? But first, I’m sure Dobbs will do something to first recharge his batteries, such as going hunting for Mexicans on the U.S.-Mexico border.