https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w95sbCUBG54&feature=youtu.be&t=24m38s
There was a very strange thing in the last post, though I doubt anyone noticed. It was my saying, at the very end, that I still had to figure out who I wanted to be when I grew up. Strange for someone on the cusp of entering their sixth decade, but there is a back story.
In the post, I talk about my returning to my workplace for the first time after cancer treatment on September 11, 2009, the day my friend Chris was saying goodbye to make way for new people at the head of the network. And I talk about how desperately I wanted to get back to my (old) life, once treatment was over and its effects began to subside. And how that all got tied up emotionally for me with Green Day's song, "Wake me up when September ends," even though Billie Joe Armstrong's September had been at the beginning of the 1980's, and mine at the end of the first decade of the 21st Century.
And in the post four months ago, I say that I had wanted to go back to my pre-cancer life, but could not, but don't say why.
The implication is pretty clear that the reason is simply that the experience had changed me so much that there was no going back to the old me. True enough, but ... there was an added dimension.
CNN's Spanish language services, which had been my professional home for more than two decades, were being transformed, to abandon what was considered a repetitious, breaking news-oriented format towards one that placed the greater emphasis on talking with guests instead of repeating reports from professional journalists, and sought to branch out from the narrow politics-and-business concept of "news," with a bit of science/technology/medical news to evoke the "gee whiz" factor and garnished with sports, weather, and this weekend's movies. The most heavily promoted shows of the relaunched network being a nightly interview show in the style of what Larry King had been doing for nearly half a century, a relatively safe, non-confrontational space for politicians and other celebrities to promote their wares or present their case; a daily mid-morning women's "news" show; and a daily hour-long "entertainment" (in reality, gossip) show.
Honestly, there's two --or perhaps three-- people I can be. The hard nosed and cynical reporter, a doubting Thomas who wants to put his fingers in the holes. The acerbic commentator. Or the old activist, driven by love and rage and the conviction that one day there will be a better world -- or none.
Those three people, in turn, can staff any number of positions --and have-- in media and communications. Writer, editor, interpreter, translator, announcer, analyst, producer, manager and so on. But the one thing they could not be is purveyors of "be scared ... be very scared" crime/terrorism propaganda ensconced in happy talk. Opposites though they may appear, their social function is essentially the same -- to distract people, draw attention away from the individual and collective problems, the challenges and opportunities they face in everyday life.
Happily, I was spared the choice between being true to myself and abandoning a secure job and salary. I was the most senior employee in the newsroom, having been there for 20 years. And I had two decades of journalist experience before that, going back to when the president was Nixon and the scandal du jour was Watergate.
Not much call for that if the aim is never to come close to twitter's 140-character limit or make someone in the audience feel you know more than they do just because you were there and did put your fingers in the holes. Especially if the employer put a premium on knowledge and experience, which CNN does, or did, and paid accordingly.
So after "abolishing" my position, and "inviting" me to apply for the same sort of job, the most junior guy in the new "management" told the most senior guy on the staff that he had not been chosen. I came out of the session with mixed feelings, but mostly thankful that I hadn't been the one to get 30 pieces of silver out of the deal.
It will be a long time before this post sees the light of day. I got the best severance package of anyone at CNN en Español because I'd been there the longest, but it was on condition --among others-- that I don't say anything bad about them. Once the package runs out, I'll try to remember to post this.
[Well, remember I finally did.]
Honestly, there's two --or perhaps three-- people I can be. The hard nosed and cynical reporter, a doubting Thomas who wants to put his fingers in the holes. The acerbic commentator. Or the old activist, driven by love and rage and the conviction that one day there will be a better world -- or none.
Those three people, in turn, can staff any number of positions --and have-- in media and communications. Writer, editor, interpreter, translator, announcer, analyst, producer, manager and so on. But the one thing they could not be is purveyors of "be scared ... be very scared" crime/terrorism propaganda ensconced in happy talk. Opposites though they may appear, their social function is essentially the same -- to distract people, draw attention away from the individual and collective problems, the challenges and opportunities they face in everyday life.
Happily, I was spared the choice between being true to myself and abandoning a secure job and salary. I was the most senior employee in the newsroom, having been there for 20 years. And I had two decades of journalist experience before that, going back to when the president was Nixon and the scandal du jour was Watergate.
Not much call for that if the aim is never to come close to twitter's 140-character limit or make someone in the audience feel you know more than they do just because you were there and did put your fingers in the holes. Especially if the employer put a premium on knowledge and experience, which CNN does, or did, and paid accordingly.
So after "abolishing" my position, and "inviting" me to apply for the same sort of job, the most junior guy in the new "management" told the most senior guy on the staff that he had not been chosen. I came out of the session with mixed feelings, but mostly thankful that I hadn't been the one to get 30 pieces of silver out of the deal.
It will be a long time before this post sees the light of day. I got the best severance package of anyone at CNN en Español because I'd been there the longest, but it was on condition --among others-- that I don't say anything bad about them. Once the package runs out, I'll try to remember to post this.
[Well, remember I finally did.]
