Clark Kent Quits the Daily Planet

The Daily Planet gets zapped. (Flickr Creative Commons: arellis49)

Clark Kent quits the Daily Planet in the latest issue of Superman by regaling the fictional paper staff with a well-timed speech about the mores of journalism.  “Go easy on us mortals, Clark.  Times are changing and print is a dying medium,” one of his colleagues replies.

Superman’s alter ego seems to be  four or five years behind on sentimentality for the sanctity of print news.  Jim Romenesko quoted the comic’s writer as saying “this is really what happens when a 27-year-old guy is behind a desk and he has to take instruction from a larger conglomerate with concerns that aren’t really his own.”

Here continues the morass of pop culture representation of journalists as either moralistic anti-capitalist crusaders or soul-sucking wretches who smoke cigars.  Also, Clark Kent doesn’t have to worry much about his backup plan: his moonlighting gig is pretty solid.

The comments on Romenesko’s post on this were pretty smart, too.  See: “Quitting?  In reality, he’d be a victim of staff cuts…”

About Michael Juliani

Michael Juliani is a senior studying Print and Digital Journalism at USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. He's a senior news editor and executive producer for Neon Tommy and an associate editor and contributor for the Online Journalism Review. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Huffington Post, among other places.