People like Alex Pareene are the reason I left journalism. His mother is some big-deal editor and that's how he got into the business and climbed the ladder so quickly. That piece of info has since been removed from Wikipedia, but I remember it.
It's an awful feeling to be working for a major news organization and watch twentysomething kids of famous people (Luke Russert; Chelsea Clinton) stroll in and earn ten times more than you right off the bat.
These are the two most obvious examples because those two were on-air personalities. But there are all sort of lower-level editors and writers like Pareene who had doors opened not because of what they did, but because of who they were.
Journalists historically were from blue-collar backgrounds. But that changed in the '80s and now it's getting like the Ivy League, where a large amount of people get in solely because they're "legacies."
This is why journalism changed. They can no longer assess what's fair and what's not is because they themselves are on the "unfair advantage" side in life.
You wonder why it appears journalists have contempt for the "stupid" rednecks who build our houses and keep our streets safe? It's because they do!
I could not imagine people who have *less* of an understanding of working class Americans than these Ivory Tower legacies. Your local barber or tailor is a better source of honest information than the modern-day Little Lord Fauntreloys crowd.
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Also, Pareene is really overweight and has been for a long time. There was a recently study that said being fat
ages your brain prematurely so take him about as seriously as you would the senile patients in a nursing home.