Journalists Struggle to Find Metaphors (Like Boats in a Storm)

article image

Journalists are burying their heads in the sand, as newspapers spin their wheels in the dune, not realizing that the axles are already broken.

No wait.

Journalists are choking in a sea of turbulent media, struggling and gasping for air, as newspapers–that look less and less like lifeboats–navigate perilously close to a rocky shore.

One more try:

The ivory castle of journalism is being raided by a marauding hoard of bloggers and citizen journalists who are hell-bent on scorching the earth of the media, and then salting it so nothing will ever grow again.

Writers have come up with plenty of metaphors to describe the death of their own industry and, like the over-crowded media landscape they lament, there’s plenty of quantity just not a lot of quality. Beth Macy, writing for the American Journalism Review included some old saws and a couple of new ones in a recent article on journalists who have decided: “If the ship’s sinking, she’s going down with it.”

Here are a few:

“Some days you feel like you’re slowly being buried up to your neck, but you’re still there, still breathing.”

“We’re the ones left in the lifeboat. We made it off the ship, and we’re out in the big ocean. But we’re alive, and we’re together, and one way or another, we are going to get to shore.”

“It’s not just about Budweiser any more. There are lots of microbreweries and, while the microbreweries might not pay as well, sometimes they are more rewarding.”

“Just like with the economy, I think it’s going to get worse, and then eventually something beautiful is going to grow up from the ashes.”

And my favorite:

“I feel like I live in Middle Earth, and the dark cloud has covered the land.”

Image by Katherine Oneill,  licensed under Creative Commons.

Source: American Journalism Review

UTNE
UTNE
In-depth coverage of eye-opening issues that affect your life.