"No Story! But it's Sad...."

Remember when I told you about my friend Pete? He's a good guy. He also has a kid on the way.And Pete just lost his job. He was a delivery man who worked hard at his job, was well liked by his bosses, and wanted nothing more than to work hard throughout the day and go skate afterwards. But, due to complicated factors with the tourist industry in Santa Fe and the decline in retail sales, he and two other people were let go from their work. And now, two weeks later, he is stressing out trying to find a labor job that will help him support his family.

I wanted to do a story that involved Pete. Without getting into the specifics; the story was supposed to be about the difficult life of the laborer during the current recession. Cable news focuses on the downfall of people's 401(k)'s, but I wanted a story that talks about the people who are too busy working remedial jobs to have time to worry about a retirement plan. This story seems a tad cliche and obvious, but I thought I could make it work from a local perspective. Because of the economy, the business man can't buy that $500 dollar watch from a Santa Fe boutique , and in turn Pete looses his job. Who has more to worry about?

I researched retail sales across the nation, which are down. Researched retail sales in Santa Fe, which are down. Researched tourism in Santa Fe, which is down. My story was this- laborers are loosing their jobs throughout Santa Fe because of the economy. Tug at the heartstrings kinda thing. I took it to my boss, who is the smartest and most well-respected journalist I have ever met. He looked at it, and quickly pronounced the most important lesson I have learned thus far. "Brett, this isn't a story," he said. "People know this already; the economy is down, low income people will loose their job". He wanted me to look for something that was up in the bad economy. Do a story that starts, "With everything loosing profit these days, people are finding solace in.....uh I don't know.......sleeping pills. The sleeping pill industry is booming". Interesting story? As interesting as real people loosing their jobs?

News is about finding a story that people don't expect. It's too intuitive that Pete lost his job. I can't turn a personal story into real news. Ultimately, my boss said I could go through with the story, but I could tell he wasn't interested. I let it go.

Journalism is hard. Stories that you care about, others could care less. I know the story wasn't much of an actual story, but I thought I could help out Pete. I like journalism because it influences people-in a positive and negative manner. You can have an influence on people's daily lives. A HUGE influence. But I look at cable news and it sucks. They just did a story about who would make a better James Bond, McCain or Obama.

Sorry for the shitty rambling. I'll get back to posting stories about cleavage.