It beats working

What a perfect day to be a reporter. The President was in town today and he's almost openly feuding with the governor whom he has allegedly urged not to run for re-election next year because he would hurt the rest of the Democratic ticket. What could be better?

Of course, there were many fewer ink-stained wretches to record the scene today than would have been there just a few years ago and the number is likely to keep slipping.

Most have been forced out but some have left on their own volition, scared at the grim economic prospects of what is certainly a shrinking, if not a dying, industry.

That's what helped to make a column in last week's New York Times about someone who had made a successful transition to another field and then decided to come back to a newspaper so interesting. The journalist, Thomas Moran, worried about job security and paying college tuition, had jumped from being the political columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger to a policy job with PSEG, a New Jersey-based utility.

He pointed out that his pay had been frozen for three years and that the newsroom was considering sharp cutbacks. Shifting to something as solid as a utility seemed like a perfectly sensible thing to do economically.

But he soon discovered that he essentially couldn't be happy not working for a newspaper, especially in a place like New Jersey which his editor termed a "game preserve" for political corruption. He wanted his old ring-side seat on the spectacle back. So he ditched his utility sinecure to re-enter the turbulent newspaper business.

Journalism in a way is like politics. Once someone's bitten by the bug, it's a difficult infection to shake.

"Sure, being a newsie is a grind," said Times columnist David Carr in his piece about Moran, "but it beats working by a mile. Every day is a caper, and most reporters are attention-deprived adrenaline junkies who care only for the next story."

Even on slow days, it's tough not being at the Capitol. On days like this it's downright painful. After all, someone has to work to restore the reputation of New York being at least as screwed up as New Jersey.