36: Why do we do it?

Why do journalists do what they do? Put up with the snark and the sneering; the shitty shiftwork; the lack of respect; the constant doom-talk that it's a dead industry from fucksticks who can't tell the difference between a termination and a metamorphosis; the endlessly boring accusations of bias and prejudice from shitheels who have never even talked to a journalist, let alone set foot in a newsroom; the fucking awful pay; the endless pressure to produce new, interesting and important content; the excruciatingly long hours.

Why do we do it?

We do it because it's fun, and even though you can spend hours and hours of your life waiting for a contact to ring back, or for a media release to come out, it's never boring. There is always something new to follow up, some lead to chase, some breaking news to get your head around. There really are such things as a slow news day, but the whole day can suddenly turn around on a sudden, unexpected story, and that unpredictability makes every shift an adventure.

We do it for the people we work with, who are some of the smartest, funniest, wittiest and most empathetic people we have ever had the pleasure to know. Journalism still attracts a lot of pure dickheads, but most of them don't last long, because the ability to get along with other people - to make small talk, and feel concern, and get the best out of them - is a vital part of being a journalist. Joe Dipstick might think we're all a bunch of grasping, greedy, arrogant pricks, but media people are generally quite brilliant to work with.

We do it for the noblest of reasons - to seek out injustice and expose it, to find that truth in the white noise of culture and bring it to light. Shining that spotlight on corruption, or on something in our society that desperately needs to be fixed. It takes so long, and often involves a huge amount of dead ends, and things can get tragically missed or overlooked for ages, but sometimes, just sometimes, we get a result.

And yeah, we do it for the recognition, that thrill of your name at the top of a strong story, or in a list of nominees for an award from your peers. It helps us connect with the world, and become part of the national discourse, and makes us feel a little less alone in this cold, cold universe.

We do it because we're nosy as hell, and want to know things before other people do, and still get a cheap thrill out of telling people interesting information they were not aware of, living on the sheer pleasure of spreading the news. We are curious motherfuckers, and we want to know stuff, and when we find out cool shit, we make sure everybody else knows about it too.

We do it because, for a lot of us, we're totally fucking useless at anything else, but we can do journalism. What the fuck else are we going to do?

We do it for the interviews - the ability to talk to people we'd never talk to otherwise, with that constant challenge of expectations and new revelations. Sometimes we get to talk to our heroes and idols, and while that can be disappointing when you are interviewing your favourite author and he uses the word 'cuck' without any irony or sarcasm, it can also be just magic to talk to somebody you've wanted to meet your whole life.

We do it because somebody has to. Might as well be us.

- Steve Lombard / Katherine Grant