Frustrated Reporter Quits After Slow News Day 178
Norwegian radio journalist Pia Beathe Pedersen quit on the air complaining that her bosses were making her read news on a day when "nothing important has happened." Pedersen claimed that broadcaster NRK put too much pressure on the staff and that she "wanted to be able to eat properly again and be able to breathe," during her nearly two-minute on-air resignation.
Re:Great! Move On. Spend More Time w/ Family (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No News? Make Up Some (Score:5, Insightful)
Follow the example of the old BBC (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.historic-newspapers.co.uk/Old-Newspapers/1930-Newspapers [historic-n...pers.co.uk]
Re:Not as clear cut as that (Score:2, Insightful)
Bright enough to gain a lot of public sympathy. Surely that's worth something.
How is it not bright? What are the negative consequences for her? Will her former employer sue her?
Is rebellion in the air?
Re:Great! Move On. Spend More Time w/ Family (Score:4, Insightful)
Actors, newscasters, athletes, they don't really need to know what real life is like. Lets take the Senate and make them work the fishing boats and oil rigs. It might give them some perspective. Shit, my Senator even admitted to never having used an ATM [cbsnews.com]. These are people who would really benefit from seeing things from the other side.
Re:Great! Move On. Spend More Time w/ Family (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish there were a way that we could take actors, news-people, and sports figures with good gigs who insist on complaining, and have them work at a real job for a couple of years. Take anything you see on the show 'Dirty Jobs' and have them do that for a couple years. Then tell them if they insist on telling the world how hard they have it once back at their easy job, permanently install them in the real world with the rest of us.
Except that they're already in the real world with the rest of us.
It's all relative.
Sure, I can sit here and watch Myth Busters and think that's the greatest job in the world... But I bet they have shitty days too. I bet they've got folks on staff that they can't stand working with. I bet they've got bosses telling them to do stupid things. I bet they have days when they really don't want to wake up and go in to work. I bet they have days when they just can't wait to get home and relax. I bet there's stretches where they don't know if they'll be doing another season, and don't know if they're going to have a reliable paycheck.
Just because you aren't sweating and getting dirty doesn't mean you've got it easy. Just because you are sweating and getting dirty doesn't mean you've got it hard.
Re:Great! Move On. Spend More Time w/ Family (Score:5, Insightful)
The day someone can't quit their job because of the working conditions aren't as bad as someone else's job is the day we all become slaves. Ever quit a really shitty job in the USA? Well you're a pussy, you should go clean 3rd world sewers in India while stuck in a repressive caste system with no chance of ever doing something meaningful or maybe you can go build iPods for 16 hours a day in China. That would teach you to respect that burger flipping job or mind numbing office work...
If we're going to race ourselves to the bottom like that then no one should ever quit their job because they are unhappy with it. The warm thoughts that someone has it a hundred times worse than you should be all the motivation you ever need.
Re:Not as clear cut as that (Score:3, Insightful)
I think his response wasn't so much about the actions of her former employer, but the caution potential future employers might exercise when considering her for employment.
Re:Great! Move On. Spend More Time w/ Family (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, please define a "real job". Are non-crappy jobs not real jobs??
Phillip.
Re:Not as clear cut as that (Score:3, Insightful)
Her job was to entertain her listeners. She entertained her listeners. Where's the harm to her eomployer?
Maybe it's different in Norway, but in the US there are certainly job prospects for crazy radio personalities.
Set Time for News (Score:4, Insightful)
Anytime you have a set amount of time you have to fill or a set amount of time on-air, you'll get a bunch of "news" that isn't newsworthy.
Re:Great! Move On. Spend More Time w/ Family (Score:3, Insightful)
Really?
IMO journalists have become entirely oblivious to what they're reporting, and just cut and paste into the format.
Case in point: this submission, which was pretty much drag-and-dropped into the /. submission box.
Re:Slow news day. (Score:2, Insightful)
That's it! I quit!