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July 05, 2008
Cuts at work
Now that my paper's top editor has written about it, I finally feel comfortable sharing something that's been on my mind for the past couple of weeks. My newspaper, like nearly every other daily newspaper in an urban or suburban area in the United States, is struggling, and more people are going to lose their jobs.
We cut 30 jobs in February, 19 through layoffs and 11 through attrition. Three of these people were in the newsroom, the rest were spread across the company. The bosses told us in late June that we will have to cut more, but they haven't yet been specific. My uninformed guess is that 8 to 10 people in our 50-some person newsroom will go, and another 20 or so jobs across the paper will also be cut. This is pure speculation.
Nationwide, newspapers have cut more than 6,000 jobs since Jan. 1, 2008. Layoffs are accelerating as the year progresses, with more than 900 jobs cut in the last week of June alone.
A newsroom mentor and other talented hard-working people went on unemployment following the last round of my paper's layoffs. Talented reporters from other papers, people I know through my participation in the Society for Professional Journalists, have been laid off or demoted. Half the names that made me want to get into this business in the first place took buyouts at the Washington Post in May. Thinking about it all makes me choke up.
Here's a map showing many of the cuts, though I know of layoffs that aren't included.
So how am I coping? I'm in mourning for my industry, I'm scared about the long-term prospects for my career. I'm also oddly calm about my immediate future.
At first I was so scared I could barely do my job. Then I went camping in Yosemite with Ben and his family. I talked about it too much there, made dark jokes, speculated about a thousand possible new careers. We came back home, and nightmares ruined my sleep for several days.
I'm not equipped for prolonged emotional turmoil, however.
I love my job, and if I lose it I'll be heartbroken. In the meantime, I'm going to keep loving it. I'm going to keep striving every day to transform myself into the best reporter that I can become. I'm taking a class on databases, because I think that it will help me with that goal. I'm working hard. I can't fix all that's broken about newspapers, but maybe I can make my small contribution to the industry a little bit more vital.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at July 5, 2008 11:24 AM
Comments
Hey Courtney, wanted to let you know I'm thinking about you. I know these concerns have been extremely stressful.
Some questions for you: do you specifically love newspapers, reporting, or just news in general? Do you prefer facts-only reporting or do you also like to include humor, emotions, or opinions? Would your dream be to do pure news, human interest stories, feature articles, other kinds of media writing, or a combination? How do you feel about written journalism versus audio versus video?
I'm wondering if some of these questions could help articulate your dream job and lead to brainstorming of other options. I'd be very interested in discussing with you at SNDC.
Posted by: Dan Muzyka at July 5, 2008 01:51 PM
Hi Dan, great questions, and thank you for the empathy. I do love newspapers, but I also believe that the daily print paper is a beast that will not survive my career.
In my dream job, I would be primarily focused on pure hard-news, digging up facts and analyzing them to give a deeper view of events and situations than people can otherwise get. Although I am comfortable injecting some humor and emotion into my work, I don't think opinion is my strong suit.
I am stronger as a writer than as a video or audio storyteller, and for that reason I think the written word should be at the heart of the work I do. But I do think there is an important role within that broader context for telling stories with audio and video, and I am trying to develop my skills in these areas.
I also very much love the Web's ability to make journalism into a collaborative act. This goes beyond the "iReporter" phenomenon that CNN and a growing number of other news organizations have latched on to, whereby readers and viewers submit original content. There's a lot of potential for journalists to create interactive Web sites that allow people to extract the exact information they need about money, about neighborhoods, and about world events.
Here's an example:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/business/2007_BUYRENT_GRAPHIC.html
I would love to be involved in conceiving and helping to create these interactive experiences, though I fear that the way the industry is broken into silos would mean a move towards interactive online journalism would be a move away from writing and reporting. I never want to stop writing and reporting.
Posted by: Courtney at July 5, 2008 02:34 PM