First, I hadn't realized Hank Stern had left the WW. He is great, and I'll miss bugging him.

I wonder if there are any studies comparing relative burnout across industries, job titles, and conditions. For example, which has higher burnout: working in media or working in the nonprofit industry? Stock brokering, or waiting tables in fine dining?

Message to kids - if you want to be a talking head - go for it.

If you end up in any other niche, reporting, editing, photogs ... you will soon rue being trapped in the nightmare of 24/7-365 hours
forget about seeing your family
constant noise
steady yelling of demands and criticism from your coworkers, bosses and customers
All of this for near minimum wage pay!

It's funny to me when some blowhard tries to bestow their "sagacious wisdom" on the "inept youngster" but doesn't even have the competence to notice their own typos.

With James Pitkin leaving, who will break the news that Reedies do drugs at Renn Fayre?

I have quite a few things I could say about this, as it's something I've been wrestling with: whether to continue full-time editing, working on things I really care about, with meager income and really long hours, or move over to freelancing, with less job security and having to work on things that I don't care about at all, but higher pay and some spare time for a change. I'm sticking with the former, but I don't have an answer yet to the burnout problem.
But I won't type out a lengthy comment about this, partly because a comment thread just doesn't seem like the best forum for a discussion about this, especially after the last two posts -- one from someone who apparently never has anything to offer but glib negativity usually based on a ridiculous oversimplification of any issue, and another from some craven, condescending ass who uses a bit of personal information that a journalist mentions about herself to tear into her and try to make her feel terrible about her work and abilities on the basis of some vague, conceited lecture. I can only assume that if she's been at this 6 years she has the self-assurance not to be bothered in the least by such things.
And I hope that every good journalist feels they're really contributing to something important and gets the support and satisfaction they need to ward off burnout. I know that for copy editors and page designers anyway, it's often far too much of a thankless grind.

Oops, a few comments got in there while I was dawdling with submitting mine. By "last two comments" I meant 3 and 4.

Print journalism will survive in some form or another, but it'll be produced exclusively by people who--at least during the given period in their life--can survive off of sub-poverty level wages.

So go for it, true believers in the all might power of Journalism. You're like our modern day monks. Instead of paying you, the Mercury should just give you a wooden bowl that you can carry from house to house begging for food.

If you started journalisming when you were 19, how many packets of ramen do you think you'll have eaten when you finally retire penniless at the age of 85?

I started as a journalist and didn't last because I felt the feedback loop was imbalanced...so I found jobs that gave me an immediate connection to the people I was trying to reach. Between Theatre, education, and a spattering of lousy jobs that brought debt and a sense of loser-ness, I'm sad I didn't stick with journalism sometimes- it was hard, frustrating and made me wish I had more time to read good journalism...but I liked connecting readers to stories about their world.

Damn, one of them was not Casey jarman.

I know a (former) photojournalist who said that EVERY pj with whom they worked is now a wedding photographer. That's tragic, in a sense, and yet I think that for any given moment, there are now probably more "breaking news" photos taken and distributed than ever before. That's rough for the photographers but, all in all, a net gain. True, this gain isn't realized in the same way with journalism (where storytelling skill, bias, insider knowledge, etc. all come to bear upon the value of a journalistic piece) but there, too, the internet and some innovative media groups are still coming up with ideas. And also, I take some amount of solace in results and trends such as The Economist recently observed in a special feature on the state of reporting and news in the world: http://www.economist.com/node/18904136

Still, sorry to hear about the tough times at the WW.

Wait--smart, ambitious, suffering from possible burn-out and not even 25 yet, Mirk? You got some nerve upsetting the Portlandia worldview of this town.

Jesus Mirk. I've been reading this paper for ten years. I could have sworn you'd been writing for it longer than that.

A man fights for what he loves, with guns and fists. By my mustache, do what you love or die a living death without passion.

I got paid 50 WHOLE DOLLARS for the Esquire piece I wrote.

I am seriously considering going into digital advertising.

@17 Unfortunately, Bruce was owned by one of the reporters/editors leaving. I'm not sure which one though. http://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-27522-t…

I was really hoping they would make Bruce the new managing editor. I really loved his idea for a ban on feline stories.

Follow Bruce's new tumblr here: http://dailybruce.tumblr.com/

Pitkin? Thank GOD. That guy was a terrible reporter, researcher and writer.

Now if the odious wannabe Ruth Brown would only follow suit..