'It's always been a lousy business'

Steve Buttry, who received high praise when he  was named editor of the year by Editor & Publisher, is making the switch to digital media.

His wife, Mimi Johnson, is not a bad writer herself as you will see if you read her sad tale of why she
doesn’t read the newspaper anymore and uses her husband’s career to explore the newspaper business.

‘The truth is, it’s always been a lousy business,” she writes. ‘My husband, Steve Buttry, has spent his 38-year professional life working in the newspaper business. After all that time, he’s worn out.

In her musings about husband  Steve, she writes about a young reporter who gave the job everything, to the point that he sometimes just fell asleep in the newsroom. One morning an editor walked in to find him, bleary eyed, just waking. Shaking her head, the editor told him, Son, you can love this business with everything you’ve got. Just don’t forget that it is never, ever, going to love you back.

Biuttry is going to work for Allbritton which  launched The Politico, a political news website and newspaper on January 23, 2007, the day of the 2007 State of the Union Address. Last October,, Allbritton announced that it planned to launch an online-only news site for the Washington, D.C., area in spring, 2010. The site "will build on a merger of the Web pages now fielded by the company's television stations, WJLA-TV (Channel 7) and its cable sibling, NewsChannel 8," according to the Washington Post. Jim Brady, a former Post editor, will run the site, which does not yet have a name.



Read Mimi’s Musings

Read the Editor & Publisher article.

“Did it ever occur to you that even the most deathless love could wear out?”

                  ~ Rhett Butler from Gone With the Wind.