This is an excellent observation by outgoing Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell about the changes in my profession:

Journalism is better than it was in my early days, and changes in technology have opened up a new world. My worry is that journalists aren’t as connected to readers as they were in the days of my youth, when the city’s newspaper was the equivalent of the public square. Then, reporters tended to be folks who often hadn’t graduated from, or even attended, college, and they weren’t looking to move to bigger papers. They knew the community well, didn’t make much money and lived like everyone else, except for chasing fires and crooks.

Now journalists are highly trained, mobile and, especially in Washington, more elite. We make a lot more money, drive better cars and have nicer homes. Some of us think we’re just a little more special than some of the folks we want to buy the paper or read us online.

Reporting wasn’t so much a profession when I landed my first newspaper job as a copy clerk in 1987, and we journalists didn’t expect to make money. We were driven by a passion that didn’t mind the promises of poverty preached in journalism school. (OK, I did drop out for a year because of those lectures, but then I landed that first job at The Tampa Tribune, and I was hooked.)

Howell also is right about the typical journalist’s ambition. It’s not that we didn’t have any. But it was focused on the local or state level. I always dreamed of becoming a statehouse reporter in West Virginia, for instance, and I worked with many journalists who knew their communities better than anyone. They were poorly paid local celebrities, and that was sufficient.

I know that’s no longer the case in the nation’s capital, where I have spent most of my career.
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