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February 16, 2005
Screnwriter-turned-blogger Roger L. Simon says plays are harder than journalism
Having done both, I heartily disagree.
Here's what Roger says:
"I think there is an unwritten story in the present blog/MSM controversy regarding Eason Jordan. Journalists are jealous of bloggers. Some of them very jealous. And I am not saying this just because if you type "Jeff Jarvis" into Google you get 397,000 links and if you type "Steve Lovelady" (the Dorothy Parker wannabe who recently called us "salivating morons") you get 804. Many of the more prominent bloggers are people who could have been journalists but chose not to, going into professions that took more professional training and/or were more remunerative. Now they can afford to blog at their leisure and, not surprisingly, they're pretty good writers and journalists. And, also not surprisingly, many journalists are pissed off."
-Actually, I'd say the only thing Roger really gets right here is that bloggers do their thing at their leisure. Because hardly anyone's gonna pay somebody to vent partisan opinions online, where anyone else can do so. "Many of the more prominent bloggers are people who could have been journalists but chose not to"? Actually, most of them are legit journalists that I can think of. Kaus, Alterman, Welch...Reynolds is a law professor, of course. I think Roger is projecting his own motivations onto everyone here.
"I have my own story in this regard. I thought about being a journalist, even about attending Columbia "J" School, but decided to pursue playwriting, although I knew it was far more difficult (hey, get serious!). After I graduated from Yale Drama without really learning how to write plays (truly difficult indeed - and can't really be taught anyway), I wound up writing novels and screenplays for a living (both difficult enough). When I was still starting out, I wrote a couple of journalistic pieces for West Magazine, a defunct organ of the LAT. Wow, this is easy, I thought (compared to what I was trying to do), but then I saw the check. It was miniscule next to what I was getting, admittedly intermittently, from Hollywood. Why even bother?"
-I wrote a full-length play in high school. I trained to be a film-maker, and sold a screenplay right out of college. Later, I ended up in journalism. Why do screenplays pay more? Because they're 90+ pages long!. Actual journalism stories are like 1500 words. Duh.
As for scripts being harder, other than the length involved, I disagree. Scripts can come from your head. Journalism has to have sources. Roger's been writing opinion pieces too long to remember how hard actual journalism is. No shit, Hollywood pays more. Hollywood is worldwide -- the LA Times is not.
"Please understand- I am not disdaining non-fiction writing. It is a great craft and presents its own problems. But they are on a different level. There is a reason David E. Kelley makes a gazillion dollars and you never heard of Steve Lovelady until he attacked blogs."
-Yes. It's called "TV has a bigger audience than print journalism." Double duh. Most Americans don't read any more.
Salary is not always commensurate with importance of job. If it were, teachers would get paid the most.
Posted by LYT at February 16, 2005 3:56 AM [Message Board]