The tiny humiliations of being a journalist

Why I've been posting so many silly little videos lately.

“This you? This you? Is this you? This … you? Is THIS yoU?”

My upstairs neighbors open their door. I freeze, ring light glowing in my face. Maybe if I am perfectly still on my couch, they will not see me through the window by the front door. A silhouette whooshes past, I’m safe. I go back to the task at hand.

“This you?”

I’m on my 18,402nd take of an opening line of a TikTok video, trying to sound upbeat, not forced. Conversational, not cringe. I play back the last cut, seeing if it’ll do. It makes my skin crawl. I look anxious and uncomfortable — which is not the vibe!!! Another take, this time I pretend I’m talking to Dan.

According to my TikTok account, I hadn’t posted a video since 2022. In the last six days I made three. It’s not a newfound passion for social media, it’s … pessimism? Strategy?

There was a bloodbath at the L.A. Times last week. More than 100 employees were laid off, and as I watched my Twitter feed populate with journalists announcing they were among the culled, other outlets started firing people, too.

It’s a spooky time for the industry.

In the wake of the spree, the internet argued that journalists could prevent their firings by making themselves indispensable; turn yourself into a big enough *:･ﾟ✧brand*:✧･ﾟ by amassing a huge social media following, making newsletters and TikToks (COUGH COUGH), winning awards, etc., and outlets will have no choice but to keep you.

The scheme isn’t foolproof; journalists with many followers and Pulitzer prizes were among the recent layoffs. Also, it’s weird to try to be a brand. And time consuming. And embarrassing.

I didn’t study broadcast journalism or acting, I’ve never taken a video editing class. I don’t want to try to get famous on YouTube and I really don’t want to beg you to “like and subscribe.”

But I also don’t want to fall behind out of pride. I’d like to keep writing for a living.

So I fired up my ring light, woke up early and worked on the weekend to make three goofy little videos about my recent stories, hoping they’d reach a new audience beyond the people who normally read my stuff or follow my social media.

It’s not entirely foreign. I already film a lot of ~content~ for work.

Whenever I’m in the field — to interview veterans who scuba dive to treat their PTSD, or report on weed in Thailand — I always record video of the scene and film myself talking to the camera about what I’m doing. There’s no film crew; it’s just me, standing alone with my phone, recording myself like a narcissist. I’ve ducked behind clothing racks and garbage cans so onlookers won’t see me in this humiliating process.

Then I’ll pitch video opportunities with the footage to the powers that be; more often than not my b-roll and talking head footage ends up on the cutting room floor. Or Instagram.

Maybe making videos myself will put some of that footage to good use. Maybe it’ll make my employer think I’m indispensable. Maybe it’ll help me build my brand, and if I do get laid off, people will like me enough to follow my work somewhere else.

My latest extra curricular videos have not gone viral, and they haven’t catapulted me to fame. But they have achieved the goal of getting more eyeballs on my work than if I hadn’t made them. If you haven’t watched them yet, here you go.

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