Seen Any ‘I (Love) Journalists’ Bumper Stickers? Thought Not

Pardon me if I sound a little snippy today, but it’s time someone came to the defense of the most abused, most misunderstood and yet, pound for pound, most cuddly members of the modern American work force.

That’s right, you’re way ahead of me. I’m talking about journalists. Fourth-estaters. Ink-stained wretches. Knights of the keyboard.

Oh, don’t try to apologize now. You beat us up, and then beat us up some more, and then expect us not to have hurt feelings?

We knock ourselves out day after day, just to try and keep you informed, and for what? To be yelled at? To be called unfair?

Do you have any idea what we go through to serve you?

Just yesterday, I was sitting with my feet up on the desk, swigging a soda and trying to think of a way to serve you (OK, not exactly--I was trying to decide whether to eat before going to the movies or afterward), when the wire story flashed on my terminal.

American journalists, the story reported, are less satisfied with their jobs than they were 10 years ago and more of them hope to leave the profession. The survey found that 21% of journalists said they’d like to be working outside the news media in five years, a percentage twice as high as 10 years ago and three times higher than 20 years ago.

Reading between the lines, I saw pain. I looked into the faces of those journalists across America and felt their sense of rejection.

Why are we so unhappy? you ask.

Ha. As if you didn’t know.

Could it be because we’re petty, insecure and hopelessly cynical people with overinflated egos trying to enhance our own pathetic existences by destroying those of other people?

No, that’s not it (but it sounds like a damn good future column).

No, it’s because reporters have been taking it in the teeth from everybody for too long now. Have you ever written a piece of flowery prose full of good adjectives only to have it defoliated by an editor who, not content with that atrocity, feels the need to humiliate you on top of it?

I remember one editor who pinned this handwritten note to a reporter’s desk, in view of everyone: “Kit-- All canyons are rugged.”

And it’s not just the skewering from editors that damages our psyches.

Take the police.

As a cub reporter, I was occasionally dispatched to the local Police Department to sift through mountains of police reports and kibitz with the boys in blue.

One day, I spotted a potentially newsy crime report but noticed that a supplementary report was missing.

So I mentioned the case to a friendly lieutenant. “Do you know where I could get a copy of the supplementary report?” I kibitzed.

His reply: “Have you tried Sears?”

All right, 20 years later I admit it--a funny line. But don’t you see how those little jabs and insults add up over the years, making us feel that, well, people just don’t like us?

If you’re keeping track, I’ve now pointed out that we face rebukes from our own editors, as well as from representatives of our institutions.

Those are bad enough, but what hurts the most is when you, the reading public, criticize us. After all, you’re the only people we really want to like us.

So imagine the depressing effects of getting a letter, as I recently did, that began with a friendly recitation of the person’s status in life. I assumed I was hearing from someone who was feeling particularly well served.

Then came paragraph three: “Now to the reason for writing. The content of your articles is rarely relevant to anything of any interest to anyone.”

I read it and reread it, but could come to no other conclusion than that this was a person who did not feel served by me.

He then went on to recite a few problem areas in Orange County that I had completely overlooked.

I’m nothing if not tough as nails, but this one hurt. It didn’t even matter that of the various things he mentioned, I had written about some of them.

No wonder we’re an unhappy, miserable lot. Who wouldn’t be?

So, come on, give us a break.

Journalists are people too--irritating people, mind you--but people just the same.

We need reassurance and reinforcement just like everybody else.

Come on, tell the truth: Have you hugged a reporter lately?