Philip, I really wish you the best. Journalism is in an awful place right now.

Sorry about the job, and the car towing sucks.

I've recently watched watched the DVD "Cinderella Man", maybe watch some inspirational movies like that, the ones that show getting kicked in the gut doesn't always kill us.

Hang in there

I wish there was a way that this website could be more profitable to you. It's a fabulous resource and should be a full-time job for you if you want it to be.

Hey Phil

I hear ya man, it's hard times out there for everyone it seems..
I do hope something works out for ya and that you can continue doing your blog here, there is no price that people could put on what you do..

Anyhow

Just wanted to wish you well whatever happens..

:)

Hang in there =)

oh Philip! When I think of you, and Liz my heart hurts. I too worked in a newsroom and must understand how much you miss it, chasing a story and the pure adrenline rush of having it printed and written.

I know personally the organization I use to work for, one you use a lot, hired a lot of manpower this summer- college kids so they pay them 12 an hour, and give them college credit. But the real seasoned journos- the ones in their 40s and 50s, no hire.

It stinks. You work half your life honing your craft ..... and....

Maybe a drive after Labor Day. I will personally give you any and all birthday money I get as a donation.

I'm sorry about this streak of luck, and I hope it turns around for you soon.

I look forward to reading what you write here. It's made what I'm sure is a positive difference in my life.

Well, shit a brick. (Am I allowed to say that here?) I thought teaching was the only profession where you are worth less as your expertise develops. Guess not.

I can attest from my experience in voc rehab that age discrimination is real factor and has been for decades. I'm amazed at how blatant they've become, though. It used to be way more subtle. But real, very real.

It sounds like the early seventies was for women. Employers were saying stupid things like that to women until some of them started writing the stuff down and winning law suits. It'll happen with age discrimination, too. My generation is a spoiled pain in the arse, to be sure. But that very fact means sooner or later interviewers will say stuff like that to the wrong Boomer. I hope.

None of which helps you at all. Sigh. I wish I was a fat cat publisher. I'd hire you in a heartbeat.

Philip,

First, you have my sympathies. You're a talented writer with good investigative skills. You aren't the first journalist I've known to get pushed to the margins.

I agree with the comment at the top: "Journalism is in an awful place right now." Print journalism is increasingly giving way to the blogosphere and online journalism, which is good in some broad freedom of info respects, but it means it has become increasingly hard for good, independent journalists to have anything in the way of job security. A lot of newspapers have simply folded or gone online, sometimes featuring bloggers who are delighted to work for free.

This freedom of speech the Internet provides has a price, and that price is massive quantity at the expense of quality. Anyone with net access can be a "journalist" or a "novelist" or anything else the vanity press deems possible. The true pros like you get sold out to bloggers and pseudo-journalists who will work for free. How can you compete? You can't, unless you get a tenured position with the NY Times or one of a handful of other mainstays.

My suggestion to you: more paypal fundraisers to keep you and this valuable blog in the black; or take some time off, review your archives and consider writing a book. Is there anything as topical now in the US as the legal drug trade? Ninety per cent of all psychotropics produced world-wide are consumed by Americans. There's lots of room on the bestseller list for more books on the pharmaceutical industrial complex.

So sorry to hear about the job. We need real journalists like you who actually investigate an issue, instead of copying industry propaganda from a press release and calling it a story.

We never know for certain what is in the future.
We play as it comes to us, as best we can.
I hope you have a good weekend also.

What Skeptic said. I vote for a book.

A significant story is developing in LA about the fight of the parents of 7-year-old Jani Schoenfeld (diagnosed schizophrenic) to get her one-on-one schooling. Unless someone constantly talks to her, she slips into her own world of rats -- Wednesday, the Rat (bad); Saturday, the Rat (good); Sunday, the Rat (also good); cats -- 400, the Cat (bad); and girlfriends -- 24 hours (bad), 80 (?). She is on Clozaril. I think she is taking a generic version, 50 mg. twice daily (total 100 mg). There's lot of stuff on her parents' blog: www.januaryfirst.org Her IQ is 146; abnormal cortex on MRI or CT scan; but no other medical data. A book is asking to be written. Her parents have little money and want publicity. Her story appeared twice in the LA Times (you flagged it for us the first time) and on the ABC news site (I don't know if she was on TV). Fox News interviewed the parents the last time she was in the hospital (she was hospitalized three times) and met her as well; she was released several weeks ago. Please consider.

Hang in there! I really admire and enjoy your blog. Hope things come around soon.

Re; the comment about Jani in this thread. It appears that the child's parents (via his writing in his blog)were offered $500,000 from a lawsuit for school discrimination and the parents turned it down because they were asked "no media" and the parents refused. They want media attention and in my opinion gains to be made as a result of this child above her well-being.

I was alarmed to read the father's blog talk about how he shook Jani as a baby, and also abused the family dog, Honey.

There's more to that story and it's not a sappy one either, it's Pandora's Box: does child abuse cause schizophrenia? that's the million dollar question and book title.

Hang in there! It is apparently really a challenge to these potential journalism employers to perceive the value of a wise, experienced person. A lot of that wisdom comes from lessons learned across time.

I agree with the book idea. I think a book could largely be a collection of posts, grouped by topics. A page or two could be the intro to each chapter. There are books covering the issue of what constitutes science, and how those rules get bent, or covering specific psychiatry topics, and I would stay away from that theme. Maybe instead a theme could be how a blogger, the little guy, can precipitate the type of analysis, synthesis, and community that formerly could happen by traditional news reporting to defend fellow little guys against the forces of Big Business, specifically Big Pharma. One chapter could be "Telling Secrets: Releasing Big Pharma's Secret Documents." Posts regarding your diagnosis and withdrawal from psych meds could be in their own chapter. You could follow each post with selected comments, good, bad , and ugly. Toward the end of the book, a couple chapters on more human-interest stuff, like wrestling with the cyber-harrasers.

anonymous,
We know child abuse causes PTSD, dissociation and dissociative disorders of various types, including DID (formerly MPD). Any of those sound way more likely than early-onset schizophrenia to me.

Sorry to hear that. It hurts to see so many good journalists like yourself scuffling. Hang in there.