A few observations on the email from an anonymous Telegraph journo published by Roy Greenslade on his Guardian blog:

Journalist complains: “I can see, from here, that national newspapers are beginning to head in the direction that local papers went 20 years ago, demanding levels of commitment - in hours and workload - that are unsustainable in conjunction with a normal family life.”
When, exactly, did journalists with aspirations to get on in national newspapers enjoy a normal family life? Was it during that hallowed period before the internet, before TV, before radio, even? Seriously… when was it? I am struggling to recall a time when the newspaper publication cycle allowed hacks to be out of the door at five or six and enjoying a supper with their families by seven. But perhaps at 40 I’m too young to remember this golden era of which the author clearly has such fond memories.

Journalist fears: “In the next five to 10 years it will be very hard for any grown-up to sustain a career in journalism at all, unless they have a private income or a particular sense of vocation or ambition.”
I’ve heard this argument so often in the last 20 years that I could give a convincing impersonation of somebody who believed it in a balloon debate. There’s always a point - and it’s usually five to 10 years from now - that there won’t be any journalists left on papers aside from those born into enough money to sustain their careers working for avaricious proprietors. A few toffs, most probably Oxbridge graduates, will be left working for next to nothing in newsrooms - their meagre wages subsidised by mummy and daddy. It’s funny this argument because that is exactly how I remember the Telegraph was when I arrived there from the Daily Mail nearly six years ago. A place staffed by fellows of this or that college. A place with little conception of what life outside Canary Wharf, let alone the M25, was like. A place where Dominic Lawson was able, without a trace of irony, to ask me at interview how I’d managed to forget to include which university I’d attended on my CV.
In contrast, today’s Telegraph is staffed by graduates and recruits from the regions. By young and mature. A place where an advert for a handful of jobs leads to hundreds of applications within hours. Yes, it’s got so bad that there are people in their early 30s earning only twice what I earned when I joined the Daily Mail in 1999.

Journalist predicts: “By the same token, as papers/websites etc use more and more content from citizen journalists/bloggers and others prepared to work for nothing, there is a danger that the only people with a voice will be those most desperate to be heard - and they are not usually the people you most want to listen to.”
Does the author want to be heard or does he/she want merely to sit there and either wait for newsdesk to push a morsel his or her way or the chief sub asks for a few nibs to be knocked out? Does the author actually know the difference between a citizen journalist and a blogger? Where are these citizen journalists in the Telegraph? Perhaps the author is referring to that newfangled thing called the letters page.
Citizen journalism works when it’s a ground up thing. Look at the hyperlocal blogs that are taking down local papers. These are run by people fed up with the shite standard of journalism in the regions who are reinventing the trade for a new age. Some of them are even making money doing it. I’m sorry but the reason that this is happening is because the traditional journalists were too slow or too lazy to adapt to this new vista.

Journalist opines: “Again, it’s becoming all too clear at the Telegraph, whose online business plan seems to be centred on chasing hits through Google by rehashing and rewriting stories that people are already interested in.”
Funny thing that - writing about things that people are interested in. It would be a … er … radical editor who went to his bosses and said that his reporters would, henceforth, only write about things that people weren’t interested in.

I await Roy (I do not necessarily agree with the writer but I am certain that many of you will be nodding throughout) Greenslade’s response with great anticipation.