What I really want under the tree
Dear Santa:
At least 9,744 journalists have lost their jobs since September, according to UNITY, a journalist association that has been tracking newsroom layoffs. For Christmas, instead of things I sorta want -- an SLR camera, my student loans paid off and a Lakers victory tonight -- please give me some kind of sign that the newspaper industry will survive this perfect storm.
Recently I read with dismay that the American Society of Newspaper Editors will consider removing the word "paper" from its name. I also read with horror what happened at the Cleveland Plain Dealer -- two dozens journalists were called in on a Saturday and told they were laid off right before Christmas.
This year, no news organization has been unscathed. My cubicle at the Daily Bulletin once shared dividers with five other cubicles where reporters gathered sources and ideas. Today, three of those cubicles gather dust.
With wet eyes, I have watched so many talented journalists leave the industry. The smart ones with good social skills head to PR. The unlucky ones leave reluctantly with a resume stocked with news experience but nowhere to go. The few who remain feel both fortunate and battered.
For half the cost to do a load of laundry, we provide a product that has everything from the big (calling out crooked politicians) to the small (daily dose of Doonesbury). I even cover you. When you came to Victoria Gardens to have your picture taken and when you gave toys to needy children at the West Valley Detention Center, I was there to give you positive coverage.
Maybe this Christmas, you can give our embattled industry some positive coverage, too.
Warm regards,
Wendy
At least 9,744 journalists have lost their jobs since September, according to UNITY, a journalist association that has been tracking newsroom layoffs. For Christmas, instead of things I sorta want -- an SLR camera, my student loans paid off and a Lakers victory tonight -- please give me some kind of sign that the newspaper industry will survive this perfect storm.
Recently I read with dismay that the American Society of Newspaper Editors will consider removing the word "paper" from its name. I also read with horror what happened at the Cleveland Plain Dealer -- two dozens journalists were called in on a Saturday and told they were laid off right before Christmas.
This year, no news organization has been unscathed. My cubicle at the Daily Bulletin once shared dividers with five other cubicles where reporters gathered sources and ideas. Today, three of those cubicles gather dust.
With wet eyes, I have watched so many talented journalists leave the industry. The smart ones with good social skills head to PR. The unlucky ones leave reluctantly with a resume stocked with news experience but nowhere to go. The few who remain feel both fortunate and battered.
For half the cost to do a load of laundry, we provide a product that has everything from the big (calling out crooked politicians) to the small (daily dose of Doonesbury). I even cover you. When you came to Victoria Gardens to have your picture taken and when you gave toys to needy children at the West Valley Detention Center, I was there to give you positive coverage.
Maybe this Christmas, you can give our embattled industry some positive coverage, too.
Warm regards,
Wendy
Thank you Wendy, I enjoy reading you in the paper and on your blog. People seem to forget that you don't know what you've got till its gone. Again Thank You!!
I appreciate the hard work of journalists, news photographers, etc. I believe your services are necessary for any well-run society to exist.
That said, why the attachment to 'paper'? While I currently feel that paper provides a better reading experience (though not newspapers, really - I've never liked all the folding/unfolding), that is a medium and you can expect that to change as technology improves.
You are a provider of valuable information, and I'm not really sure the medium it is printed on is all that important in the grand scheme of things.
The benefits of a medium such as this - a two-way medium - has many advantages, and IMO is better than the one-way ivory towers of the past.
In that sense, the best journalists aren't becoming PR reps (shudder). They're embracing new technology, evolving their craft to the realities of a two-way world, and writing on sites such as this. That makes you one of them. :)
Anyhow, best of luck to you and yours this season.
- Jeff
the attachment to paper is one and the same as the attachment to ad revenue, aka income. the few ads on the Daily Bulletin website barely cover the cost of one reporter, let alone a full staff. Only after online content is able to do anything other than decimate existing revenues and fill bandwidth with pointless entertainment gossip will the majority of journalists abandon paper.
The only constant is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.
— Isaac Asimov
But if you change the way I get my news, my comics, MY FAVORITE COLUMNS, if you take away my portable, foldable format and put it into a box that requires a power source, I won't be happy. I want to be able to eat my Cheerios next to it in the morning without fear of spilling milk on the keypad. I want to be able to lie on the couch on a lazy Sunday afternoon and hold it out in front of me (without first working on my upper body strength--who wants to do that?) I want to be able to cut out a recipe that I will never make and use the color comics as cheap gift wrap. I want it to stay as it has always been.
But Mr. Asimov is right; the world will change, and the newspaper business will change along with it. I just know that good writers like you, Wendy, will always find a way to share your talents with hungry readers, whether through print or pixels. Maybe this link can help you when the inevitable happens: http://spot.us/
Good luck to us all.
"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? ... If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, 'they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."