One day they will take away my journalist's card
Have we already abandoned the idea of making a living from journalism and I haven't even realized it yet?
PalmThis idea has been taking hold in my head for some time now: journalism has definitively mutated into activism. And if not, how can I explain why I should agree to do a double-page interview in exchange for 60 euros? That's what I asked myself a couple of months ago, when I received a proposal from a Catalan-language music magazine. "We know it's not much, but oh well..." they argued, as if offering condolences for a completely unavoidable loss, as if more could have been done, as if no further explanation were needed. I'm fine: it's not much, but so what? But can your medium only survive if you offer lower wages than the plumber's minimum travel charge? But should I practically have to pay you guys to be able to interview this gem of an artist? But I already know that, nevertheless, this won't feed me? While I would have loved to ask all these questions, one isn't that punkish, and I actually resolved it with a cowardly "Sorry, I'm really scatterbrained and won't have time to do the interview." I admit I'm good at playing dumb, but I didn't expect them to still outdo me by offering me the option of handing it in a few days later, as if that were the problem.
No, seriously: have we already abandoned the idea of making a living from journalism and I just hadn't realized it yet? Or perhaps we've already given up on it as a profession and relegated it to the category of hobby or humanitarian mission? In any case, I wish someone had informed me about it. At least then I wouldn't have made a fool of myself the day I suggested they rectify the contract they'd just given me at the magazine where I was starting to work, because they must have made a mistake when they put "assistant editor" instead of "editor" in my job description. It turns out all my colleagues "assisted" some editor, even those above me. Of course, woman, what do I give: how else could they have given us a gross salary of €19,000 a year? Now it all makes sense. Although I'd already had my suspicions ever since they asked me—not as a favor, but as a commission—for a collaboration, assuming I wouldn't be paid absolutely nothing, and that I wouldn't demand it either. They couldn't even afford it with visibility, because the outlet had just been ripped off.
Be that as it may, now more than ever, I must be more of an activist than a journalist. Especially because I'm at this point in life where to the question "and you, what do you do in life?", I answer like Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha"It's complicated to explain." "Are you saying that because what you do is complicated?" they ask her. "Hmm... it's because, really, I don't do it anymore," she clarifies perfectly. I no longer investigate, I no longer cover press conferences, nor do I offer public service information. She feels like I'm scamming everyone when, by inertia, the first word that comes out of my mouth is 'journalist' the moment I have to introduce myself as something. I live in fear that one day they'll ask me about my work history, that my last registration with Social Security will give me away, and that they'll tell me I'm busy in this profession. In fact, when I say what we are, I say it softly, in lowercase, with a giant question mark on my face, as if asking for forgiveness, for fear that someone will discover that I'm downgrading the title of journalist. Because once you've been one, you agree with who can afford it and who can't, shielding egos, which are the ones that are truly nourished. Like a gentleman's agreement. So the moment you stop being one, you can't pretend that one day you didn't look down on the person who left before you, judging them for having given up, for not being able to sacrifice their life—suddenly, in an armed conflict; or agonizingly, in a newsroom—for journalism.
On more than one occasion, I've heard colleagues lament that they didn't leave journalism because they knew that, if they did, they wouldn't be able to return. And I understand them. It's an incompatible job. It's the sublimation of the phrase "dignified work." It's a wonderful pyramid scheme. It's the most necessary Stockholm syndrome on the planet. I know all this. But, suddenly, I stumble across a journalist, like Salvadoran Valeria Guzmán, who confesses to being a romantic and says: "We do more: we write more, because we never know when we'll stop being able to do it." And then I lose my bearings: my thoughts become muddled, my convictions seem negotiable, and a sudden fog clouds my memory. For a moment, I envy the work she preaches, the bastion she defends. I regain consciousness, and I know again why I wanted to dedicate myself to the same thing she did.
