Today, neither journalists nor their employers have aligned their self-perceptions with the wages they pay and the space they occupy in the world. For decades, companies like the media Big Three have seen themselves as among the elite employers of New York, analogous to Goldman Sachs, or McKinsey, easily able to recruit and retain the best and the brightest. The Times, the Journal, and Time Inc. want to hire yuppies, the better to connect with their yuppie readerships. And reporters and editors want to be yuppies. But the economics of the business—and of the home town—no longer allow for the upwardly mobile portion of yuppiedom. (It's somewhat different in Washington, where the rich aren't so rich and housing isn't so expensive.)

We New York-area journalists shouldn't ask for pity, and we don't deserve it. As a class, we're bourgeois and ambitious. We like comfort and access, but we don't want to work all that hard. Working for clients, as our lawyer neighbors do, is anathema. So is taking on risk, the task for which our neighbors who toil in the financial vineyards are so richly rewarded. Most people who choose to become journalists have great advantages—good educations and the sorts of skills that can translate into other professions. Writers unhappy with their wages can always switch fields, seek other jobs, or leave. If housing prices continue to rise, and if wages continue to stagnate, the media Big Three may find that their captive creative class might quit for greener pastures.