Big Pile of Sad

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

I don’t know what it is about hotel ballrooms and fluorescentish lighting, jugs of ice water and a cookie tray, and four to five people going on and on about anything at all, that, verily, I love so much. It is what it is, as the reality show stars say these days (having moved on from discoursing on “the journey”), though I wish they would say it in French. Another panel discussion? Ooh la la, I am in a heaven of hogs!

And this one, put on by the L.A. chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (of which I have been one!)? Let’s let the title—“Journalism Ethics in a Post-Journalism World: How to Regain Your Career Without Losing Your Soul”—speak for itself.

Okay, let’s not let the title speak for itself. “Journalism Ethics in a Post-Journalism World: How to Regain Your Career Without Losing Your Soul” was a giant, sucking pile of sad.

One woman and four men, all formerly of either the Los Angeles Times or LA Weekly, told us about their new jobs in PR or working for the SEIU. We could have jobs also! they said. (We can not also have jobs.) And in some cases their jobs were sort of the same as journalism! (But really, mostly they weren’t.)

Aaron Curtiss, formerly of the Times, works at Sitrick now, the crisis management company that won’t let you talk to Chris Brown. Curtiss was buttoned-up and potty-mouthed, and we dug him a lot.

Ted Rohrlich, also formerly of the Times, does investigations for the SEIU; he was a perfect mixture of Shep Smith and Wallace Shawn, but he didn’t say anything I actually wrote down.

Laureen Lazarovici, formerly of the Weekly, gave us a rundown on the day someone came to a meeting on expanding the school breakfast program to passionately argue for it; a few weeks later, having snagged a gig in the Clinton administration (which unaccountably was opposed to the school breakfast program expansion), the passionate advocate was passionately opposed. That was the day Lazarovici heard a loud voice telling her to pick a side and fight for it. I heard a loud voice once, in the middle of the 21st snowstorm of a New York winter. It told me to go to Miami. Taking a job with the nurses union, Lazarovici once la-di-dahed that she was a journalist. A handsome firefightin’ union head guy admonished her (handsomely): “You are a union propagandist, and don’t you forget it!” Now she works for Kaiser. Everyone loved Laureen Lazarovici.

And then came Allan Parachini, who told us he left the Times for the ACLU, which is “a desperate organization run by a loathesome executive director,” so now he’s the Public Information Officer for the L.A. Superior Court. “What’s a reporter?” he asked rhetorically. A few years ago, he could have answered that question, but now? “I don’t know.” Then he said that “media relations professionals may be making bigger contributions than journalists,” and every unemployed journalist in the room (and we were legion) gave him an inner melodrama-villain-hiss, but later he talked about Britney Spears not wearing underwear, so he was probably forgiven.

Also, there was another guy, who never said a word, and we don’t know who he was, because we, as is natural, were a few minutes late.

the newspaper of tomorrow

None of this was the problem, of course. There was plenty of Humorous Anecdote to be had, and somewhere in the back was a cookie tray. What may have sucked my soul right from my body was the fact that nobody in the room can even get a job in PR. PR! The velvet casket for hacks who can’t! As one questioner pointed out, we’re told to try for PR, but every listing wants experience, and there a hundred out of work actual publicists applying for every last gig. “We managed to get jobs in narrowing circumstances,” Lazarovici told us, while eating her invisible cake. “You might not get a job this year, or next, but in 2011 there will definitely be jobs!” Then she suggested we put to use our excellent grammar skills writing, I don’t know, medical copy maybe? And nobody in the room loved Lazarovici any longer.

As actual publicists in the room started namedropping their old journalistic employers and encouraging us to get into fundraising (“The world’s second-oldest profession, right?!” Wrong.), I started to cry on the inside. And when a lady came up and whispered to me to pull my sweater down because I was thonging all the people behind me, I cried (on the inside) harder.

My little brother loved it, though, because he totally met a chick.

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