If you are an active Internet user, chances are that the name Rob Kuznia will be familiar to you. When the Pulitzer Prizes were announced, and journalists like me were left feeling insignificant like a blade of grass in Semmozhi Poonga, some of us learnt that not all prize-winning journalists were able to take home the bacon, quite literally. Rob Kuznia, we learnt, had already left journalism for a job in PR because he couldn’t pay rent. We learnt that Rob was just like us, trying to make ends meet.
Because let’s face it — journalism doesn’t pay. And good journalism doesn’t come cheap. It comes with risks. Like the one Gregory Winter had to face when he covered the news of Ebola hitting West Africa. And Daniel Berehulak, who worked with Winter’s team, had to watch a four-year-old left to die in what passed for a hospital ward. A journalist is not one who is mistaken to be the owner of a snazzy Lamborghini. She or he is the one who does the right thing by reporting it to the police for rash driving; out of jealousy, of course. Which one of us — journalist or otherwise — doesn’t want to be mistaken as the owner of a Rs. 30 crore car? You’re clearly repressing some emotion if you say no.
Ask any one of us who attends press meets. It’s not just for stories. We know that the invite includes high tea, low tea, a pen, a notebook... Small pleasures in life excite us. The reason journalists who write about food are sane is because there’s food. Vox recently ran a piece on advice to young journalists where it mentioned that they shouldn’t get depressed, go to journalism school or worry about vertical mentoring. Here’s my simplified version: be smart. Don’t become a journalist.
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