That is called projecting.

I am sure that you are not the only one thinks about doing that, but you are the only one who would commit it to an entry in a blog for the world to see.

It is nice to see that you are capable of thinking of doing something nice for others.

The bad news is that you know nothing about the real world. Trade magazines are drying up, killing those copywriting and editing jobs. Magazines in general are starving to death. Why should anyone pay to read stuff when they can read it online for free? (And when not even the New York Whore Times could convince people to pay for their online content?)

Hey Tom, you may not know this, but trade magazines are typically free and sustain themselves on recruitment and product advertising. So while it's true that magazine publishing on the whole is drying up, trade magazines that are geared toward professionals in stable and/or growing fields like medicine or education are still going strong. I should know, because that's where I got my start in the "real world."

Writing will become a skill as useless as learning to play the piano. Before the phonograph, that was the only way you could hear music. Now only a few people take the laborious and painful path of learning to play a piano. Only a tiny fraction of those can make a subsidence-level income by doing it, and they have to learn how to duck beer bottles thrown by their "patrons." If you want to write, that's cool. But don't expect anyone to respect you for it or pay you to do it. Wake up and smell the steaming cesspool they claim is coffee, you two.

Well that's news to me Tom. I'm not rich by any stretch, but I make a pretty decent salary marketing a fairly large professional services firm. The job is writing intensive and I never would have gotten into this field if I hadn't started off in journalism. I also still do some well-paying freelance writing for those trade magazines you claim are going under.

Oh well.

Josh Marshall at TPM put up a post today stating he is looking to hire 7 new editioral staffers; some in NYC, some in DC. http://tiny.cc/Jg3Rz

Good luck.

Dear Cary,

I feel what you wrote had undercurrents most of your readers didn't pick up on. The sense you conveyed so well of being in a kind of desert (journalism) not seeking the story but seeking the takers of the story. Seeking the energy. Like having to chase somebody whose wallet you have found. Every day. All the time. I really liked what you wrote and the way you wrote it.

Something is very weird--has been for a while now.

The indifference "either way" as you say-- the silence that has become like a complete language, the girly fear of any story that isn't precisely in keeping with Media Moral Code.

(I strongly suggest you read "American Sissy" by John Strausbaugh.)

The whole thing is like a cat when it is very dehydrated and refuses to drink. It wants to die.

And maybe journalism wants to die.

It stopped imbibing the thing it was supposedly nourished by: Reality.

Since the mid 90s, every journalist who tried to break a story, (a new story, a new way,) was promptly driven from the profession with burning sticks and left to die a mile outside the village. Journalists became mouthpieces and defenders of industry. Investigative journalists are not killed off by corporate entities, but by other journalists who kill their name inside the profession. Inside hit jobs. Happens all the time.

But I have an answer for you: Free yourself. The pod-people will never take an interest in any story they have not already pre-digested, that is not a direct extension of their World View.

Freedom of the press is limited to those who OWN one. After my own divorce with journalism, after a 2006 article in Harper's that infuriated pharma-funded HIV professionals, especially in South Africa's monied elite, but also in the NYT, CJR etc, I realized how much fun I could have just writing what I want to write, in my own time and space. Should you have the time, I'd welcome a contribution from you. The Truth Barrier, (www.thetruthbarrier.com)

It's where the outcasts, refusniks, irresponsibles, poets, real scientists, and plain folks convene to exchange raw data. We believe that raw data cannot be dangerous or wrong.

We love writers and we love narratives of all kinds, so long as they are real, true, and from the heart.

We're working on the money angle. Angels abound.

Stop by.

I would like to gently say to the writer of this letter that the issue of your drinking and your paralysis/fear of failure are directly connected. You're going to need to root out both of them in order to move forward. If I were you, I would start by going to AA meetings to look at why you undercut yourself by driving drunk - it's very real self-sabotage for a journalist to be unable to physically get around to pursue stories. It sounds like you are somewhere where a car is essential for transport. As a way around that and to goose yourself into some action, you might consider moving to a large city like Chicago or Philadelphia that has reliable mass transit and where exciting things happen that you might find inspiring to write about. Also, it's one thing to work and make progress within the cocoon of school, with professors and a university structure to fall back on and to help make connections, and it's something else entirely to go out into the world and do it on your own, especially in an economy this horrific, and with the old way of going about journalism collapsing catastrophically. I think your torpor is simple depression at the seeming enormity of your task, but remember, you are not the only one under-/unemployed right now. Pursuing a passion is always a crap shoot even in the best of times, and it's not a bad idea to have a Plan B. It does sound like you are as well-prepared as you could be to pursue your previously-chosen career, but a period of soul-searching after college is to be expected. You might turn out to be a different kind of writer than you thought. I personally learned that I am not really cut out to be a full-time freelance writer because the financial uncertainty of it is intolerable to me, but having made peace with that, I created a combination of stable daytime employment and occasional freelance contributions that allowed me to write two books. Many freelancers augment their writing income with work such as copyediting, teaching and consulting. If you do have any other interests, developing those concurrently with journalism is a great idea. The real world is very demanding, and requires flexibility and resourceful thinking. It’s not easy, and there is no shame in taking a break before diving right into it. I worked in a pizza restaurant for a while after college until I got myself pulled together. It took a while, but that break did me good – the best thing it showed me was that I didn’t want to sell pizza for the rest of my life, and I bet something similar will happen to you with ice cream. Good luck to you.