Just because I KNOW somebody will copy and paste

[MineralMan]

85. I retired from journalism in 2002.

I had another business I could follow, so I did. You're right about the deterioration of standards all across the industry. I was speaking of the time when I was actively in that career. Certainly the publications I wrote for would have never given me another assignment if I got something that wrong. The amount of editing and oversight steadily decreased during my time, and to the detriment of the final product.

Frankly, I was glad to finally end that line of work. It made my living for a couple of decades or so, but got more frustrating as time went on. I'm an old geezer, so my standards were set in a different time, I guess.

These days, as I find myself having to go back to work, despite my geezerhood, I'm finding the work easier, since I'm basically writing marketing materials for small businesses as I fill their websites with content. The pay per word is lousy, but the writing goes quickly, and my very varied background lets me take on just about any business website job.

My wife, also a journalist, is still plugging away at what she's always done, but has also shifted to editing web content on a contract basis. She's appalled at the poor quality and sometime downright plagiarism she sees, but it's a living, so she fixes the lousy writing and rejects the plagiarism. Beats going hungry and without heat in the winter, I guess.

Still, there are many reliable sources of information out there, if you're willing to dig them out. For that, I'm grateful.