Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, Wednesday, June 12, 2002


ODD JOB OF EVEN ODDER THOUGHTS


STANDING at the kitchen sink peeling a couple of hard boiled eggs for Des's Can Curry, I was watching the workmen put the finishing touches on the office block next door and thinking, you know, journalism is not a proper job, not really. Unlike those blokes - the bricklayers, plumbers, concreters and so on - who have been hard at it for six months, from digging the trenches to glazing the windows. They are the bona fide workers, let me tell you. Journalists, on the other hand, inhabit a twilight world, a predicament shared with other ne'er-do-wells such as lawyers, booksellers and poets. Not a real job among us. In 18th century France, the aristocracy was barred by law from any profession that bore the taint of trade or manual labour, leaving only the Law, the Church or the Military as acceptable careers. Journalism was not considered acceptable. In the late 19th century, Viennese satirist Karl Kraus defined a journalist as a person who had ``no ideas and the ability to express them''. I resemble that remark. Over the years I have known journalists who had anxiety attacks on deadline, which is not recommended; several ``hanging's too good for 'em'' rednecks; some emotional wrecks who laboured over tear-stained pages; one who opted out to start an artificial flower farm; another who went rock sculpting; and a few who were mad or went mad. None of them would be able to run a dispute mediation service. Those of us who have managed to last the distance into middle age - male editors mainly - often have a balding, soft, buffed pink appearance. Stood side-by-side, we look like the chorus line from the Beer Barrel Polka. At the other extreme, among the current crop of young Messenger journalists, we have a former member of the Australian Girls' Choir, an elite triathlete and a young woman who says she has purple ugg boots which she wears in blue PJs with ducks on them. Uh-huh. Ordinary people, sort of, but across the generations we all share in a desire to have readers. Yes, you. Newspapers are engaged in a never-ending discussion about readership - up, down, sideways - understandably so given forecasts such as, by 2010, half of all retail shopping in the US will be online or by mail order. Some newspaper editors find it tiresome having to deal with people who are unwilling to recognise their paper's obvious advantages. Not me. Unemployment is tiresome. Discarding the last of the eggshells, it struck me that once, before the plastic supermarket bag came along, I would have wrapped the kitchen scraps in neat, tight newspaper parcels that would not come apart in the bin, and later would decompose gently at the tip. In those heady days, you had to have a newspaper in the house otherwise the rubbish was unmanageable. Newspapers were useful beyond their content, which may have added, say, 10 per cent to their circulation. There you go: Ban plastic supermarket bags in order to increase newspaper circulation. Yes, I know, it is hard to believe I am paid to do this job.