I'm Glad I Don't Write For Them!

by G.Parker

One of the positive aspects of being a writer is that it gives one choices. Sometimes it's the choice of starving or eating -- but it's still a choice. We also give choices to our readers -- and they choose whether to read or not.

What brings this to mind is the tabloids in our world. You can't miss them, they're in every grocery store next to the check out counter. They're in the gas stations, the convenience stores, drug stores, I'm surprised they aren't in the hardware stores, but then I guess they figure women are the biggest readers. (Is that because women are known gossipers?) So -- there they are; the tabloids full of gossipy news about celebrities that we wish we could live like or emulate (heaven help us).

But now that we live in a world of the electronic age where everything is known within minutes of it's happening, tabloids have joined the internet landscape. One of my email accounts is at Yahoo. If you click on the Yahoo home page, you'll have at least two selections of tabloids. I can't believe the stuff that shows up on there. I try to ignore the stuff at the grocery stores as well. I remember Men in Black and how they were supposed to be the "best investigative reporting on the planet." Please.

My point is this: How would you like to have to earn a living that way? I think it would drive me crazy to write such stuff. Do you have to believe what you're writing? Honestly think you have something to add with your article? This doesn’t make sense to me. How can they write about something so outrageous as a woman giving birth to a bat boy and be able to live with themselves?

I guess if it comes down to the only way you know how to make a living is to write, and the only option you have is to write for such a business, then I guess it's write or starve, and writing will win.

I'm just glad it doesn't have to be me. I'd only last a week or so, and then I'd be in the park, fighting the pigeons for the crumbs.