The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Another Job I Won’t Get

Posted on | June 12, 2010 | 18 Comments

Not that I would ever consent to work for the company that employs Andrew Sullivan, of course:

Atlantic Media, a national news publisher in Washington, D.C., is beginning a search for two dozen reporters to join its editorial ranks. Our current effort includes recruiting exceptional reporting talent already well-proven in covering the nation’s capital.
As background, Atlantic Media is the parent company for The Atlantic magazine, National Journal magazine, Government Executive magazine, CongressDaily and The Hotline. In the moment, our recruiting is focused on the National Journal magazine, its website and related publications.
In all of its hiring, Atlantic Media seeks two pillar qualities – force of intellect and a personal spirit of generosity.

(“Pathological obsession with obstetric issues of Republican politicians is helpful, but not required.”)

Recruiting down two paths:
Recognizing that these gifts may not present in the same individual, Atlantic Media is recruiting for individuals working down either of two paths: relentless breaking news or original, rigorous commentary.

(“Israel-bashing and paranoid fear-mongering about Tea Party activists counts as ‘rigorous,’ if not exactly original.”)

Breaking News – especially web savvy: The intention here is to identify reporters made for – naturally wired for – breaking news. High metabolism. Relentless. Unstoppable. Prolific.
Original Insight: The intention here, harder to realize, is to identify individuals made for – naturally wired for – original insight, original frames for comment on the large, national issues. Economist rigor; Tom Friedman insight.
Please send resumes – or refer strong candidates – to www.nationaljournal.com/talent.
Atlantic Media is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Wonkette had a laugh because of the expressed interest in “Tom Friedman insight”:

ATLANTIC SEEKS TO CLONE
WORLD’S WORST COLUMNIST

Wonkette also pointed out that “Atlantic Media Group’s National Journal just got rid of thirty (30!) journalists through buyouts, so the net gain of Journalism Jobs is zero (0).” 

This is how the cookie crumbles in the collapsing world of Old Media — experienced journalists are laid off and replaced with low-paid new hires. And, hey, it’s a recession, so . . .

Dear Editor:
You won’t hire me. I’ve been a professional journalist since 1986, I’ve won national awards, been praised hither and yon, achieved remarkable success as an independent blogger, excellent references, etc.
This online application form requires me to attach a resume, and you’ll notice it’s nearly two years out of date. I haven’t bothered to update it, because you won’t hire me. You won’t bother to interview me nor even send so much as an e-mail to say “Thanks but no thanks.” That’s because you’re aiming to hire a bunch of 20-something kids who’ll work for next to nothing, and who can blame you? I’d do the same thing if I were in your shoes.
Nevertheless, I felt obliged to make a gesture, so at least my wife can’t accuse me of not trying. No hard feelings. And good luck finding the next Tom Friedman, although it seems to me that one Tom Friedman is more than enough.
— Robert Stacy McCain
http://kxm.209.mwp.accessdomain.com/

It felt good to hit the “send” button on that one.

UPDATE: James Joyner at Outside the Beltway mentions that Andrew Sullivan’s employer hopes to tempt aspiring Friedman wannabes with what “is purported to be a salary . . .  in the low $30,000s.” This is presumably more than they’re paying Obama stooge Linda Douglass:

Completing a full spin through the revolving door, Linda Douglass, a long-time CBS and ABC correspondent before jumping aboard the Obama campaign in 2008 . . . has re-joined The Atlantic as a Vice President who “will concentrate on company strategy and communications,” the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz reported online Thursday morning.
Before joining the Obama campaign as senior strategist and senior campaign spokesperson on the road, Douglass toiled for National Journal . . .
.
Atlantic Chairman David Bradley recognizes the conflict between her political agenda and being a journalist, but he told Kurtz “she’s too big an editorial talent for us to keep her out of the editorial product.”

David Bradley might as well hang a sign on the front door: “Help Wanted. Democrats Only. No Conservatives Need Apply.”

UPDATE II: Ah, yes, the auto-reply e-mail:

From: “donotreply@atlanticmedia.com”
To: r.s.mccain@att.net
Thank you for submitting your resume. Our management team is reviewing your qualifications and will contact you if there is a match with our current open positions.
Meanwhile, using your email address and password, you can login to our careers website anytime to update your application information.
We appreciate your interest in Atlantic Media and wish you the best of luck in your job search.
The Recruiting Team
Atlantic Media Company

When you care enough to send the very best . . .

Category: Andrew Sullivan, Neutral Objective Journalism

Comments

18 Responses to “Another Job I Won’t Get”

  1. Howard Towt
    June 12th, 2010 @ 8:55 pm

    I think it helps if your name is Linda. See Howard Kurtz 6/10/2010 in the Washington Post.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/10/AR2010061000924.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

  2. Howard Towt
    June 12th, 2010 @ 4:55 pm

    I think it helps if your name is Linda. See Howard Kurtz 6/10/2010 in the Washington Post.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/10/AR2010061000924.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

  3. Mary Rose
    June 12th, 2010 @ 9:49 pm

    Omigosh, that form you sent was beautiful. I laughed. I cried.

    You were right on the money. 🙂

  4. Mary Rose
    June 12th, 2010 @ 5:49 pm

    Omigosh, that form you sent was beautiful. I laughed. I cried.

    You were right on the money. 🙂

  5. ck
    June 12th, 2010 @ 10:38 pm

    How could you possibly want more than McArdle and Sullivan? Obama can only get one blowjob at a time.

  6. ck
    June 12th, 2010 @ 6:38 pm

    How could you possibly want more than McArdle and Sullivan? Obama can only get one blowjob at a time.

  7. paul mitchell
    June 12th, 2010 @ 10:50 pm

    What in the world is Tom Friedman insight? The ability to be wrong 100% of the time?

  8. paul mitchell
    June 12th, 2010 @ 6:50 pm

    What in the world is Tom Friedman insight? The ability to be wrong 100% of the time?

  9. Red
    June 12th, 2010 @ 11:42 pm

    Hello! They’re only doing it for the possiblity of new tax incentives should the FTC get involved which may put you (and the rest of the blogosphere) on notice. Let’s hope not.

  10. Red
    June 12th, 2010 @ 7:42 pm

    Hello! They’re only doing it for the possiblity of new tax incentives should the FTC get involved which may put you (and the rest of the blogosphere) on notice. Let’s hope not.

  11. FenelonSpoke
    June 13th, 2010 @ 12:07 am

    They want someone with a “personal spirit of generosity.” That would be someone who spiritedly and generously attacks Sarah Palin and any conservative with the most personal invective possible.

    Don’t feel too bad about the auto e-mail reply. That’s a standard reply to anyone submitting a job application one-line: “Don’t call us; We’ll call you.”

    I did like your running commentary on the article, and the “You won’t hire me.” reply was great. Maybe they will respond. I knew a fellow who got so fed up with getting no response to applications that he finally wrote to one company saying. “Thanks for the job offer. I look forward to working with XYZ, company.” He then got a panicked letter from someone in personel saying, “But we didn’t offer you a job.” If nothing else it got him noticed and it gave him a laugh.

  12. FenelonSpoke
    June 12th, 2010 @ 8:07 pm

    They want someone with a “personal spirit of generosity.” That would be someone who spiritedly and generously attacks Sarah Palin and any conservative with the most personal invective possible.

    Don’t feel too bad about the auto e-mail reply. That’s a standard reply to anyone submitting a job application one-line: “Don’t call us; We’ll call you.”

    I did like your running commentary on the article, and the “You won’t hire me.” reply was great. Maybe they will respond. I knew a fellow who got so fed up with getting no response to applications that he finally wrote to one company saying. “Thanks for the job offer. I look forward to working with XYZ, company.” He then got a panicked letter from someone in personel saying, “But we didn’t offer you a job.” If nothing else it got him noticed and it gave him a laugh.

  13. Robert Stacy McCain
    June 13th, 2010 @ 3:10 am

    How could you possibly want more than McArdle and Sullivan?

    CK, it’s grossly unfair to mention Megan McArdle as if she has anything in common with that demented sociopath.

    I consider Megan a friend, as also her fiance Peter Suderman and, while neither of them is a right-wing flamethrower, they’ve certainly never done anything to merit that kind of slur.

  14. Robert Stacy McCain
    June 12th, 2010 @ 11:10 pm

    How could you possibly want more than McArdle and Sullivan?

    CK, it’s grossly unfair to mention Megan McArdle as if she has anything in common with that demented sociopath.

    I consider Megan a friend, as also her fiance Peter Suderman and, while neither of them is a right-wing flamethrower, they’ve certainly never done anything to merit that kind of slur.

  15. Robert Stacy McCain
    June 13th, 2010 @ 3:42 am

    I did like your running commentary on the article, and the “You won’t hire me.” reply was great.

    A shtick stolen directly from Hunter S. Thompson, who used to send hilariously abusive “application” letters to those whom he (correctly) suspected would never hire him in a million years.

    But the point is, at age 50, I’m well past that point in my journalism career (or anyone else’s career) where you get a job by applying. If there is an editor in Washington who wants to hire me, they know who I am and which cocktail parties to find me at.

    This was the original root of my grievance against Culture 11, by the way. I’d been editor of the Washington Times “Culture, Etc.” page for four or five years when I quit in January 2008. And when I was contacted by one of their young staffers (a friend) to contribute as a freelancer, I was perfectly amenable. But then I found out that they had hired David Kuo to run the operation.

    Well (a) Kuo is a worthless backstabbing son of bitch, and (b) Kuo had never been associated with anything other than failure, but most of all (c) he was certainly less qualified as an editor than I was.

    Keep in mind also that (d) one of the people hired as an editor at Culture 11 was Joe Carter, a former associate of my Donkey Cons co-author Lynn Vincent, which was (e) published by the same company that published Bill Bennett, one of the major backers of Culture 11, and (f) one of the last feature interview/profiles I wrote for The Washington Times was about Bennett.

    So it was not as if they didn’t know about me when they hired that vicious weasel David Kuo, or that they couldn’t have reached out to me before some 25-year-old junior staffer sent me an e-mail asking me if I’d like to contribute as a freelancer.

    And yet finally (g) I quickly discovered the names of some of my Washington journalist buddies who had interviewed for jobs at Culture 11 and been turned down. If the insult to me was something casual, indirect and unthinking, these insults to my friends were a direct personal humiliation.

    All of which is to say that Culture 11 had built up a massive karma deficit before anyone ever heard of it. Pissing me off was perhaps a minor part of that.

    Perhaps. And perhaps not.

  16. Robert Stacy McCain
    June 12th, 2010 @ 11:42 pm

    I did like your running commentary on the article, and the “You won’t hire me.” reply was great.

    A shtick stolen directly from Hunter S. Thompson, who used to send hilariously abusive “application” letters to those whom he (correctly) suspected would never hire him in a million years.

    But the point is, at age 50, I’m well past that point in my journalism career (or anyone else’s career) where you get a job by applying. If there is an editor in Washington who wants to hire me, they know who I am and which cocktail parties to find me at.

    This was the original root of my grievance against Culture 11, by the way. I’d been editor of the Washington Times “Culture, Etc.” page for four or five years when I quit in January 2008. And when I was contacted by one of their young staffers (a friend) to contribute as a freelancer, I was perfectly amenable. But then I found out that they had hired David Kuo to run the operation.

    Well (a) Kuo is a worthless backstabbing son of bitch, and (b) Kuo had never been associated with anything other than failure, but most of all (c) he was certainly less qualified as an editor than I was.

    Keep in mind also that (d) one of the people hired as an editor at Culture 11 was Joe Carter, a former associate of my Donkey Cons co-author Lynn Vincent, which was (e) published by the same company that published Bill Bennett, one of the major backers of Culture 11, and (f) one of the last feature interview/profiles I wrote for The Washington Times was about Bennett.

    So it was not as if they didn’t know about me when they hired that vicious weasel David Kuo, or that they couldn’t have reached out to me before some 25-year-old junior staffer sent me an e-mail asking me if I’d like to contribute as a freelancer.

    And yet finally (g) I quickly discovered the names of some of my Washington journalist buddies who had interviewed for jobs at Culture 11 and been turned down. If the insult to me was something casual, indirect and unthinking, these insults to my friends were a direct personal humiliation.

    All of which is to say that Culture 11 had built up a massive karma deficit before anyone ever heard of it. Pissing me off was perhaps a minor part of that.

    Perhaps. And perhaps not.

  17. Robert Birch
    June 13th, 2010 @ 8:27 pm

    Would you every write a book about your job hunting experience in journalism? Might be an interesting read if you think about it.

  18. Robert Birch
    June 13th, 2010 @ 4:27 pm

    Would you every write a book about your job hunting experience in journalism? Might be an interesting read if you think about it.