Old Lion to the Pasture Put

Last evening I had a chat with an industry veteran who has been a journalist for more than 30 years now -- 2 decades with a leading national daily and then various trade magazines and journals. He has seen it all -- insecure bosses trying to cut down a promising reporter, overtly ambitious juniors trying to pull you down a peg or two and much more.

I have seen some of his work. Quite good stuff. And going by the conversations we have had quite intelligent too. But probably because he was not too ambitious in life he hasn't really moved up the corporate ladder. After all, of the 100 odd journalists in every publishing house how many will ever actually make it to the top. There are only so many positions vacant. And with the competition increasing year by year sheer survival is at stake especially if you are ambitious.

I am not overly worried about that aspect. But in an industry where quality no longer seems to matter can your experience and the quality of your work take you where you really deserve to be? If you love writing then you don’t want to end up as an executive or resident editor. Not much writing that you can do at those levels.

But then I don't think many would love to remain just a correspondent either no matter at what level in the hierarchy. But then probably you can't think of any other profession, which gives you this thrill or at least the ego boost. The question is how long can this perk you up? You don’t want to file mundane everyday stories for the rest of your file. Or maybe you are not good at anything else, which I sometimes think is probably the reason why many join the media.

But going by the experience of the individual who I mentioned earlier, most might end up doing just that. Despite being good his age is a factor that will ensure that he doesn't get a job anywhere else. Who wants old fossils when there's so much enthu young blood around? There must be something wrong with you if you haven't made it big with so much experience. So either take what you get or get out. Now is it his fault that he was content with what he had and didn’t bother participating in the rat race which took his peers places. Now if he was there at the top it would have to be at the cost of one of those very peers. After all, till a year back, journos, in Mumbai at least, didn't have many options as far as hopping around was concerned.