It’s amazing how “He never acted like he was from The New York Times” seems to be a high sort of compliment you can pay a fella! That comes from today’s obit of Douglas Kneeland in the Chicago Tribune; he was an editor at the Trib from ‘81 to ‘93, after spending 22 years at the NY Times. So reading that has a sense of: Oh, someone finally said it! that thing happens to some people—not all! Not at all all!—where their life’s ambition is to work at the Times considering it is The Top Of The Heap, and why not, humans

are ambitious, and obviously these folks are often very smart and extremely skilled, and thereupon they get there and they find out that in many ways it is just a job and has workplace issues just like any other workplace and soon after that slightly warped thing happens by some moment as they think “Okay, so what now?” and “Is that all there is?” and they become a little hostile/defensive/wary/bossy?

Douglas Kneeland: 1929 - 2007 [Chicago Tribune, via Romenesko]

Original post by choire