Why I Find Big Ed's Demotion To Weekends Troubling

[stopbush]

At 59 years of age, Ed Schultz is about 9 months older than me.

I have been unemployed now for over two years. I have had numerous interviews for positions that I am well-qualified and over-qualified for. I have been through the process of doing 4 - 5 interviews for a job, including having lunch with the higher-ups later in that process as they're looking to close on their new hire. I am talking about jobs in my field and in my discipline that I have held over the past decade-plus, jobs where my record of success is sterling, and where I have not only been well-compensated in base pay but have earned bonus pay strictly on meeting or exceeding set performance targets.

And, I am not being hired.

Who is being hired? 30-somethings and occasionally, 40-somethings.

58-somethings? Not so much. 58-somethings with not much hair left, even more not so much.

Often, the interviewing process involves me meeting with the existing staff to see how I would "fit in." To a company, the only employees I meet who are over 50 are the ones who have been with the company for decades. All of the hires made in the past 5 years or so are 30 somethings. And I should mention that many of these jobs I'm talking about are in fund raising, where your job is to approach well-off senior citizens/retirees and ask them for sizable donations. One would think that maybe a person closer to the age of the donors being approached would be a better fit for the job. Apparently not.

So, I'm looking at MSNBCs line up and evolving line up of on-air host talent, and what do I see? I see a major shift to the young and - by definition - less-experienced. I see a bunch of kids being brought in at high TV salaries who haven't done much of anything in the way of paying their dues or working their way up the journalism ladder. Hell, most of them aren't even journalists in any sense of the word, including not even spending any time as "newsreaders."

Ed Schultz is a guy who spent a lot of years in the weeds, building an audience and building his brand. He worked out in Fargo and other places that most of us know only because Steve Buscemi filmed a movie there. He started in radio in 1992 as a conservative commentator. Ed's journey to liberalism began in 1998, when he visited a Salvation Army cafeteria and took his radio show on the roads of N.Dakota, gaining what he called "the on-the-job experience that...changed my thinking as to where we're going as a country."

When he arrived at MSNBC in 2009, I knew who he was. I knew he was a former Republican who turned into an extreme progressive. I knew that his life journey had made him who he was, and I believed and still believe that THAT is what makes him such a powerful advocate for liberal policies.

Now, he's been shoved to the weekend sidelines, where - let's face it - broadcasting careers are either started or ended. In his place comes a gaggle of wonkish youngsters with little or no life experience to speak of, and with a liberalism that we're supposed to believe is as real as is Ed's, even though most of these wonks have never attended a political march or rally in person, let alone got out there and LED such a rally, as has Ed. I may be totally out of line here, but I get the feeling with some of these new wonks that they could take either side of the political argument and argue it persuasively if asked to do so, and you would never know if they were at their core a liberal or a conservative.

And underneath it all comes the sneaking suspicion that ageism has as much to do with Ed's move to weekends as does his concern for his wife's health.

I had a strange feeling yesterday as I watched Ed's final 8 pm broadcast - the feeling that the old sages at MSNBC are being phased out. That feeling got stronger when Howard Fineman showed up as Ed's guest. My first thought was, how much longer will Howard be asked on as a guest on MSNBC?

So, yeah, it's troubling, because Ed's demotion is - to me - an example of what's happening across American society, where the highly experienced are being set out to pasture because they made the mistake of growing older.

Logan's Run.