Charlie Deitz

Charlie Deitz is not one to conform and his career has taken a number of unusual turns because he refuses to settle for work he doesn't love doing. I met him when we were both working for a National Public Radio affiliate – he covered the news in the Berkshires of Massachusetts and I covered New York's Hudson Valley. We both left for jobs that paid better, and when we reconnected he told me a lot has happened in the past five years or so. The latest news was he's earned his Master's degree from the University of Oregon. And he's at a crossroads again.

“It was a long haul, so thank God it's done. Now I can start the longer haul of PhD work. I do instructing and I'm also taking classes, but I'm still a slave. I don't make any money.”

“I'd like to have a hybrid job – do some reporting in some form and teach some classes. There are little mini-laboratory environments that get created – little projects, experiments – that's where you find the cool output from the professional world and academia when they start talking to each other.”

Deitz said before working as a bureau chief, he'd never been a field reporter. He put together an audition tape from gigs as an overnight radio news anchor.

“Before that I bounced around. When I moved out west from Jersey, I started working for AAA and made it to mid-level management, but after a few years I wanted to drift. And taxi driving would fund that project. But I always wanted to get into NPR. And I think it was after we had our first miscarriage was when I really felt like I needed ot make good on this life – go after what I wanted to do. That's when I got into the radio broadcast program outside of Portland, which opened the door to the overnight radio and then the affiliate in New York. The change was massive. Enormous. Earth changing. We were all very excited when the call came that I got the job. But we found out the Berkshires were a lot more expensive than we anticipated. And after we finally got a place, we found we were pregnant. And it was the beginning of the Great Recession. And my wife couldn't find work and we had to live on my salary. Not to badmouth the station, but I wished they'd paid me more. We moved to a smaller place. And after about two years, there wasn't any upward momentum. We'd gotten a raise – and I was like “Oh my God – I'm never going to be able to even buy a dinner. Everything's going to be out of a box.” I was living where the boss told me he wanted to live, and I was getting paid mileage, which I needed to help make ends meet. Then they moved the office and I wasn't in a position to move again. That was another $150 a month hit to our budget and that's what really forced me to start looking. I started sending out my resume – sent it both to colleges and newsrooms and figured I'd let the chips fall where they may. Turns out there's really a glut of talented people in the NPR world, stations weren't getting back to me, and University of Oregon got back to me and put money on the table to get me there.”

They took the Oregon offer, as it also put them back near his wife's family. “She found work after six or seven months, which isn't that long compared to where we'd just been. But to be able to have a house that was nice and clean, I really felt that difference. In the Berkshires, it seemed like every other week something massive would break – like the toilet would drain into the washing machine....”

Most people don't imagine that the reporters they hear on the radio or see on television might not be able to pay their bills. And thirty years ago, it wasn't an issue. But today, producers in a middle market television newsroom work part time in retail to pay their bills. Reporters for an NPR affiliate make thirty thousand or less – after years on the job.

“Reporters struggle. Especially TV reporters – they have to buy suits? I don't even own a suit – I don't know what I'd do. I'd probably look like some seventies sitcom extra.”

So what's he doing next?

“Right now, I'm at the point where I really don't know. I'm going through a divorce – nice little curveball – so I got into the PhD program back in March, then this happened, we each moved into our own places and split our time with Penny (their daughter). If this was chess, Katie definitely check-mated me because I eventually wanted to leave this area and look for jobs in California or back east. Now I'm kind of stuck here. Katie's not moving and I'm not even considering being away from Penny. So the PhD program is kind of a placeholder until I figure out what I can do here in this town to survive – something that's hopefully good for the world and pays me enough to pay for my apartment for say the next fourteen years. I have to play along – throw the designs out the window. But while I'm here, it's pretty fun to be in it for now if I don't think about where it's going. I get a lot of cool opportunities in the program.”

And I noted he'd get to be Doctor Deitz when it was over.

“I get to be Dr. Deitz! And working at some gas station! Dr. Gas!”

What happened, I wondered, to that sense we used to have that if you took a step ahead, you could plan ahead and be pretty sure you'd land on solid ground?

“I think that's what people tell themselves so they can force themselves to take a step. Like some sense that history is trying catch up with you and eat you if you don't move fast enough. I don't know anybody who's just kind of coasted into some luxurious lifestyle. Most of the people, even the professors, they had to go through the fire, too. Just like in news, academia is seeing a shift, towards pulverizing the entry level folks who do most of the work. It used to be you'd get your PhD, you'd work a few years, get your tenure. Now people who are associate professors have second jobs. I just have no intuition for where to go.”

We're Still Here - But We Don't Feel Well

I started this blog back in 2008. I was frightened by what I saw happening in my country.  The American Dream, that belief that hard work, intelligence and ambition could take you anywhere you desired, died.  It was a slow, sad, painful death and some of us still can't believe it's gone.

It is.

I have gone through all the stages of grief and have finally accepted that the world I grew up in no longer exists. The brave new world is not better. And we need to speak up about it.

I want to do something. I am not a policy maker (nor do I want to be), I am not a radical (except in my imagination), but I know something has gone terribly wrong and we all need to stop denying it.

There is not one simple fix for an incredibly complex web of issues. But fixes have to begin somewhere. So I'm focusing on work.We are working harder and longer than ever before, yet the middle class is heading for extinction. When it's gone, so is the society we say we live in.

I write.  I believe that this little corner of the blog universe is my place to shine a spotlight on individual stories, true stories that will illustrate what life is like in what we're told is post-recession America.

I have begun interviewing people from all walks of life, asking them about what it's like to try to stay afloat in the treacherous seas that are America after the economic meltdown.

 Some of them are working multiple jobs. Some are trying to find one. Some of them are at the top of their professions. Some thought they'd be retired by now.

They're young, they're old, they're saddled with college debt or never finished high school. They are us. And their stories are the real stories of what it's like in this country today.

There are other projects out there with similar (or even the same) names. It doesn't matter to me. What I'm doing is not the same as what they're doing, and we're all contributing to what I believe is a vital conversation.  I hope you'll look at all of them.  They matter. These people matter. We matter. All of us.

Like most of us, I work several jobs. Time is my challenge. But my intention is to post one story a week here, and I hope you'll read, comment and share. Welcome to Everyday People. Join in - share your story.

So Just What Is the Media's Role?

I watched the Stewart vs. Cramer Daily Show last night. I'm sure it was a mighty audience. Many of them were disappointed. It wasn't all that funny. It was, instead, another battle in Jon Stewart's crusade to get the media to do its job.

It's the underlying message of his show every single day, yet many viewers probably lose that message because basically, it's just funny.

Stewart's serious. He always has been. When he took on Tucker Carlson and CNN's "Crossfire" he was practically pleading. He wants news. He wants the media to do what we used to believe it does - objectively report the news, investigate what it's told and let us know what is true and what isn't.

Instead, what we have is an alphabet of talking heads all spouting their own view of things and we tune into whoever says what we like to hear. I know it. I know that when I watch Rachel Maddow she's preaching to the choir. I watch Lou Dobbs and want to throw socks at the television. I watch Fox News and wonder if perhaps I have a high blood pressure problem.

So, Stewart asks, where are the watchdogs?

CNBC is the NBC financial network. It has the supposed experts who offer advice to investors. And that's the bottom line, according to Stewart. Who are they talking to?

Is CNBC there to benefit the investor insiders, winking and touching fingers beside their noses as they share information based on lies that influence how the poor schmucks at home invest their money? Is CNBC there to offer the best advice it can to all investors? Is CNBC a watchdog inside the guarded gates? CNBC doesn't really know, according to Jim Cramer.

Cramer admitted the network could have done a better job investigating what it was told, could have been more careful about the advice it offered. Cramer sounded almost contrite when confronted with an interview in which he reveals the depth of his understanding of how to manipulate the market.

The whole confrontation was certainly great press for Cramer. How many people will now watching his show to see if he makes good on his promise to become a better watchdog for the public? But can you trust a thing CNBC does? Why should you?

And that, I'm betting, makes Jon Stewart a very sad funny man.





http://news.bostonherald.com/track/celebrity/view/2009_03_13_Jon_Stewart_hammers_Jim_Cramer_on__The_Daily_Show_/srvc=home&position=7

Real People - Real Stories

This is a sidestep from the economy, but it stays true to the spirit of what I want to collect here - personal stories. It's a crowded blogosphere and good things can get lost in the shuffle. Please do not miss this:


http://last-of-iraqis.blogspot.com/2009/02/im-in.html

Do you want to understand what it's like to be an Iraqi right now? Are you willing to do a little of your own reading and thinking instead of sitting in front of the best news team on television with your brain on "fill"? Then rejoice. Dr. Mohammed is an Iraqi dentist, a voice from the streets who is describing life as it is now.

How about a woman who is a doctor in Gaza? Yet another heart-wrenching blog.

http://fromgaza.blogspot.com/2009/01/letter-from-my-friend-s-robins.html

Then there are stories from Tibet, told from the inside.

http://www.jamyangnorbu.com/

These are just three. There are blogs from people all over the world, people who desperately want the rest of us to hear them, to know what their lives are.

I suddenly see just what an amazing gift the Internet is. Communication leads to understanding...and understanding leads to cooperation.

Stories From the Second Depression - Part One

I won't mention his name, but he's someone I've known for years. He was a friend of my father and as I grew older, he became my friend, too. He had no children and his longest term relationship lasted about ten years, but he never married.

He worked for a major city as an engineer. He was good at what he did, he was proud of his work. I've heard horror stories about months on projects in derelict neighborhoods where he never felt safe. He worked hard. He saved his money.

He retired to New Mexico about fifteen years ago and he should have had a very comfortable retirement. He invested in stocks, in gold, in a house, and he had money left over to help a friend put herself through school and, eventually, pay her daughter's tuition when she got to school age.

He's over seventy and had a health scare last year - his knees were already gone and now his heart was acting up. There was talk of an open heart surgery. He, instead, went on a strict healthy eating and exercise regimen (he swims, as it's the only exercise his arthritic knees can handle) and he's dodged the surgery so far. He loves good food, he loves to go watch the trains that pass through the small town near his home. He has a cup of coffee in the same place with the same people every morning. He likes his life.

He called me when Lehman Brothers collapsed.

"I just lost eighty thousand dollars in one day," he said. He wasn't angry, just incredulous. The anger came later.

As the economic news continued to worsen, he saw most of his savings evaporate. His phone calls, begun as a way to help me past my father's death, have become a place where he can vent.

"This isn't how my life was supposed to be. I was always careful with my money. You know me - I squeezed a nickel until it screamed. Thank God I paid off my house when I saw this coming - but now I may have to take out one of those reverse mortgages. I worked all my life to be sure I wouldn't have to worry about money."

His story is like many others across this country and around the world. He started off at an advantage - he had savings to lose. But that advantage is nearly gone. What about the elderly people on fixed incomes who have no cushion at all?

There's a price to this economy that we're not talking about yet. There's a depression going on - an emotional depression. Young people are worried about their future. Parents are worried for their children's future. People at or nearing retirement age are the ones most concerned - they have no time, no possibility to retrench, rebuild, start over.

Growing old isn't easy - there are aches, pains, limitations and the forced acceptance of mortality. Now there is an added worry - what will they do if the money runs out?