Like most mass media, when major programming innovations occur, which is rare, the cloning begins. The coast to coast sameness of the news formats, and even the on air voices and personalities, has been reinforced by the growth of chain ownership. Chain managers prefer tried and true routes to profits.

They avoid the risks attendant on striking out in fresh directions. National program services, which pipe programs to stations to relay to the audience, also contribute to the uniformity. In seeking large overall audiences, in diverse parts of the country, these syndicates stick to safe, middle ground, even within their format niches, causing major damages.

The future promises much of the same unless something occurs that upends the whole industry, and that is what we are trying to do, even if some have to keep writing for free.

We write to shed light on the obscure. If there is one door in the mansion you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise you will keep repeating the same thing.

Like the film, “Ground Hog’s Day,” with Billy Crystal, repeating the same thing over and over, reminds us of a gramophone playing the same vibration waveforms, recorded as there are no physical deviations of a spiral groove engraved, etched, or impressed into the surface of a rotating cylinder or disc. Most humans are dedicated to keeping that one door shut.

However, it is a writer’s job to see what is behind the door, to see the uninviting unspeakable stuff, and to turn the appalling into words, not just into any verses, but if we can, turn the words into harmony that spiral and grow, telling the whole story, the real truth. However, you cannot do this without discovering your own true voice, and you cannot find your expressions, unless you are willing to be honest with yourself. News is not just about collecting a welfare check for clocking hours, you need passion, determination, and courage.

If you are following your peers and they are bitter, angry, racist, or jealous, you cannot report honestly. They are probably are the ones who told you not to open that door in the first place. Truth seems to want expression. Unacknowledged truth saps your energy and keeps you and your characters wired and delusional.

Most reporters are both afraid and sad and do not quite know what is going on. It is hard to get truth out of them. Many of them tell me these incredibly long, self-important, convoluted stories. It is like they want you to feel sorry for them. Well, guess what, we have all overcome the impossible. Get over yourself!

My therapist said that jealousy is a secondary emotion and that it is born out of feeling excluded and deprive. If people work on their old feelings, the must do so by getting out and doing things they enjoy and learning to be thankful for their lives, career, family, and salaries. By doing so they will probably break through the jealousy. These reporters feel jaded because they have unresolved issues and hate new and fresh talent. These unhappy reporters have been gossiping and burning fresh faces for almost a decade, and it is because these rogue reporters  are mentally ill and unwilling to seek help, so they lash out at others.

I have talked to reporters who have been in Alcoholics Anonymous for years, and many of them spend half their time getting sober, but I find it honorable that they still go to work, and they show up sober. I asked this particular journalist what he would tell a newcomers, he replied by saying, “When I see a good looking young man half my age, with as much ambition and determination as you, and in such good shape, I feel all conflicted, wishing that I were that thin, and tan.Yet at the same time, I want to kiss you. Is that jealousy, or the type of appreciation a father show his son?”

What a wonderful and rare experience. Later that night he took me for a ride in his new BMW 750Li and threw money at me, we went to dinner, and later on passed out in my bed. He was a perfect angel and I did not take his money, I left it on the floor of his car.

There are an enormous number of people out there with invaluable information to share with you. Of course, it is just more interesting to talk to someone who is sort of keen. If you can think of someone to speak with, who is witty and articulate, it is best, so you can enjoy his or her material. However, these qualities are not absolutely necessary, because you may just be looking for one piece of information, or even a word, or just a hug. He warned me not to get into journalism. He said many reporters are, “A wild pack of demons, looking for someone to devour. Every so often, be warned that you may feel as though you have put your head in a lion’s mouth. I feel like people are patronizing me. Especially the young reporters and many of the giddy women, they are so fake. ”

I appreciated his honesty. If people do not tell me the truth, I am not going to improve. The next time I saw him, which was like a year later, I did not notice he was trying to get my attention in the supermarket. He was dressed down, he usually wears the most fancy suits, but he was in street clothes and talking to this woman. I totally ignored him because I had been dealing with a nasty pack of reporters, who felt self-important.

For example, even though they are in your environment, they will say things like, “He is following me, or he is stalking me.” So I just learned to shut people out. A few days later I realized it was the mature reporter I went to dinner with and let sleep over. I felt bad. I guess his feelings were so hurt, he never talked to me again.

I need attention. I need someone to respond to me as honestly  as possible, but without being abusive or diminishing, and I let that person walk right out the door because of negative experiences from the young reporters. So in my communication, I focus on the fact that I have tried something so difficult, I took such a risk.

Why sweep down to the river just to fill your mouth with mud. Learn how to fly and hunt. This male has succeeded. The secrecy, the obfuscation, the fact that these monsters can only be hinted at, gives us the sense that they (the young reporters) must be bad indeed. How else can you explain someone who has been working, as a reporter, at the same company, for 19 years and still not a full time anchor? Or a camera operator, who taunts people online and calls it research? They have not discovered their true voice, so they are stuck in a vicious cycle.

I was raised in a culture that promotes this competitiveness, this instability, this fantasy of needing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and then, in the next breath, shames you for feeling love, or longing for a relationship. It is my turn. I am only doing what I have been groomed to do. So I started to feel more alive and get my happiness back. I know how God feels about money, look at who he gives it to and how ugly they act.

Still, I know some very hard working reporters. There is a young woman, who gets up at 2am, drives to Sacramento, from the Bay Area (about an hour drive) and does not make it home until 9pm. That entire time she is working. Not sure how she does, why, or how long she will continue, but that is amazing. Yet, it sounds like a Greek tragedy waiting to happen. Maybe she needs to free herself from something?

And my ravaged mind, wounded psyche can and should still be cared for as softly and tenderly as possible. She is not different from me, she just lives the life I always wanted, and makes the money I dream of. Life is an abyss wrapped in the enigma of our own ignorance of the meaning of existence, it peaks echoing with cries of triumph and despair that we are hardly sure are not ours. Partly the play teases us because we have only lately recaptured it as a play. We have no records of its effectiveness in performance.