Then and now: Peaks and valleys on a journalist's career roller coaster

Over the past 18 months or so, I have found that working through an extended season of un/underemployment can be a roller-coaster ride.

There are flat stretches when not little more happens than the passage of time. There are hills — solid job leads for which I must slow down and carefully consider my steps. Hopes rise with an initial email contact, then soar with a phone screening and the prospect of a face-to-face interview.

Until now, there has been a thundering, rapid descent into blackness — perhaps with the realization, a week or so later, that

Elgin layoffs a tough story to write

(Image by Stock.xchng vi)

You cannot cover the evolution of a city budget with a $13 million hole in it and not expect to write about the consequences down the road.

I was born and raised in Elgin, Ill., and when I left for my first newspaper job in Rawlins, Wyo., in late 1983, I vowed I would return only as a visitor. That changed in 1994 — some would call it fate, I would call it God’s will — when I applied for a position with The Courier-News. There is much more to that story, but I will save it for another time.

Sun-Times ends endorsements

Smart move or more homogenization?

Crain’s Chicago Business on Tuesday reported that the Chicago Sun-Times no longer would endorse political candidates, a move that likely will raise eyebrows among readers and perhaps in the industry.

My initial reaction was to scoff that this is just one more step in a long line the company has trod toward homogenizing its printed and online products for the sake of efficiency and mass appeal.

Perhaps my initial reaction was wrong. But I do not believe it is.

2011's been a turkey, but ...

Still thankful, despite job status

(stock,xchng vi)

A year ago, I was thanking God that I had escaped yet another brutal round of layoffs as Sun-Times Media continued the draconian downsizing which I ultimately believe will prove fatal — if not to the entire company, then at least to its neglected suburban holdings.

Can peeves really be pets?

Some things that can serve to annoy copy editors

(Image by Stock.xchng vi)

A former copy editor colleague of mine recently started a Facebook thread bemoaning some of his pet peeves of misused words in the English language. I joined in the thread — we share some of the same irritants.

Good news amid Sun-Times’ bad

New opportunities, more Sun-Times layoffs

(Image by Stock.xchng vi)

As much as everyone’s complained about all the thunderstorms this summer, I’ve enjoyed them — the sound of rain and thunder, the brilliant flash of lightning. It helps me sleep better.

But professionally speaking, I’ve been going through a dry spell of late, even though there have been some good things mixed in with that.

Sun-Times to cut 400

Will media company fall as The Rocky did? 

Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

When I received the email alert Tuesday afternoon from Crain’s Chicago Business, the headline I saw, “Sun-Times newspapers will roll off rival Tribune presses,” caught me by surprise, although it should not have.

The first thing thought that came to my mind as I read the story was the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, long affectionately called The Rocky by its readers. I lived out West for 11 years, and I had read the Rocky Mountain News from time to time. Some of the folks I worked with for four years in Cheyenne, Wyo., went on to better jobs at The Rocky.