Do Prostitutes have a Future in Journalism?

I recently had a phone call from a wealthy philanthropist about opportunities for people to switch careers, and whether we could offer Thai prostitutes jobs as journalists.

Unfortunately, the answer is no.

It’s not because they are Thai prostitutes, but because journalism is something that you can’t just get from a few weeks of a retraining program.

First, it takes the right mindset, stubborn, quick-thinking hunters who dislike being told what to do. Then it takes years not just to learn how to do it, but also to understand the why — something often missing in modern on-the-job training.

But even if you have a group of people that know how to write and they can do most of the jobs related to creating a news item, it doesn’t help because a newsroom is a community that needs to know each other and in knowing each other, they need to be able to trust each other’s skills, which takes time.

They don’t need to have the same opinion. In fact, the heat created when opposites collide is much healthier in a newsroom because it ensures balance in the content.

Can Thai prostitutes step up to a career in journalism?

But they need to be able to depend on each other’s strengths and compensate for each other’s weaknesses so they can help, or get help, when needed.

A sub-editor, the person who edits the final copy in the UK, will know which failings each writer has, a news editor will know who to assign a certain story for the best result, and so on.

I realize that Thai prostitutes is an extreme example, and in fact, if they all did internships and then worked together for a few years, they would have as much chance as anyone else of creating great content.

But that’s precisely the problem with most start-up news projects. If they don’t have much money, they just put people together and tell them to write. That doesn’t work.

If there is a lot of money, highly qualified people come together and you would think it would work. Yet that’s even less likely to work.

Everybody will have a different idea of what the style guide is, what a code of conduct is, and what rules are acceptable. If you take a global editorial team, everyone would have learned different rules and legal practices, which confuses it even more.

If anybody is starting up an editorial project, no matter how qualified they are, if they do not have a newsroom that has worked together for years, they will have a problem.

It will cost more in a start up, take longer, and even then, it won’t have the strength of an established newsroom.

If you have one person in the team, who can do each of those things in the process of creating a story to perfection, at the end of the day, you have a perfect story.

To be a journalist takes years. To build a newsroom around a media entity takes even longer, and that is why every single lost media outlet is a tragedy for the profession, for the business, and ultimately for society.

Michael Leidig is a veteran editor/journalist and author, founder of NewsX Media, CEN Agency, and Mediatech Support. He is Vice-chairman of NAPA. Reporting without fear or favor.