Thursday, May 07, 2009
Lamentations on the Future of our Business
A column from the WP's Dana Milbank about the Senate hearing on the future of Newspapers:And later:They came as if to their own funeral.
Reporters from Hearst, USA Today, McClatchy, the Dallas Morning News, The Washington Post, the Washington Times and the Boston Globe -- their employers in varying stages of decline or death -- took their places at the press table for a Senate subcommittee hearing yesterday titled "The Future of Journalism."
"I hope I get laid off," one of the reporters could be heard telling a Senate staffer, "so I can get the severance."
But it was (David) Simon, once a Baltimore Sun reporter, who struck the strongest blow for newspapers. Though scolding publishers for their "martyrology" and mismanagement, he spoke of how "aggregating Web sites and bloggers contribute little more than repetition, commentary and froth" and added: "The parasite is slowly killing the host."
Go read it.
So, I'm procrastinating on writing a story (that got held anyway) and I stumble across this column in the Boston Globe by Kevin Cullen.
As a journalist, I got pulled in by his lede (even if it is a rehash of what was drilled into us in j-school) because really, don't we all think our jobs are more noble than that of those we cover?
If you ask anybody why they got into this business and they say it was for the money, they are either certifiably insane or no longer in the business.
Few in journalism call it a business. We like to think we forfeited bigger paychecks to pursue something that is essential: speaking truth to power, comforting the afflicted, afflicting the comfortable.
I'm here in New England watching as the Globe struggles with wage cuts and other concessions in an effort to stay afloat. I have to say as a newspaper snob myself, I always thought the Times was better than this. I had this notion that if any paper would understand the value of journalists, it would be the Times. And they would do what it took to make sure they continued supporting great journalism. But as Cullen said, the Globe relationship with the Times wasn't a marriage, it was a business deal. And, really, I think we all knew that if it came down to the Times and anything else, the Times was going to take care of home first. Shoot, I was told by Times employees not to go to a Times regional paper expecting the same treatment as I would in New York. Only The New York Times is The New York Times. Cullen continues:
It would be easier to get worked up if there were shining examples of an enlightened newspaper company figuring all this out. The Times has made lots of mistakes. I wish they didn't build the Taj Mahal on Eighth Avenue. I wish they'd close the International Herald Tribune before they gut the Globe. And, at the very least, the bigshots at the Times should have climbed aboard the Acela and come up here to explain to us, and to you, their threat to close the Globe. When an essential element of your business is demanding transparency of others, it looks pretty shoddy when you expect none from yourself.
But hating The New York Times is like hating the Yankees: It might make you feel better, but it means nothing in the standings.
Labels: dismay, dying newsroom, fear, frustration, industry analysis, media ownership, the industry, union, Washington
continue...Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Company lays off reporter injured in 2008 City Hall shootings
Remember that City Council meeting shooting last year where five people were killed and a metro reporter was shot in the hand by an enraged citizen?Well, the reporter, Todd Smith, was laid off last week.
Smith was a metro reporter covering Webster Groves and Kirkwood at the time of the February, 2008, Kirkwood shootings and went to Kirkwood City Hall to cover what he thought would be a regular City Council meeting. It was the night that Cookie Thornton stormed in with a .44-caliber Magnum and in a mere one minute and 32 seconds killed five people -- two council members, the city's public works director and two police officers -- before turning the gun on himself.I'm going to refrain from making any puns or anything. Apparently the paper won a Sigma Delta Chi award for its online coverage of the shooting (Smith was the online editor for two suburban editions). The article said that Smith was one of a number of people let go throughout the company.
Smith took one of Thornton's bullets in the right hand. He immediately pulled out his cell phone with his left hand to call the Journals. "I said they'd need to send somebody else, because I'd been shot in the hand."
Labels: business practices, dismay, layoffs
continue...Monday, April 06, 2009
It’s getting kinda hectic around here.
All around us, we’re seeing the ruins of papers gone. Bye Bye
At my paper, the company is proposing to guild members to take a 2.5 percent pay cut. The Guild put out a newsletter detailing the cut and asking for our feedback. On the back, lists a few options of things we could ask for in exchange for the cut.
As my coworkers looked at the paper, they all but exploded with outrage that they were being asked to make yet another cut (the company has laid off at least 100 guild members in the last 6 months, stopped our 401k match and delayed a contribution for the pension phase out plan already). They indignantly marked “there are no circumstances under which I would accept a pay cut.”
I stared at the paper and twirled my pen in my hand. I didn’t know what option to choose.
Here’s my problem: I have a job. And I’m grateful for it. Especially as I see friends up the road dealing with the prospect of being unemployed very soon. Do I want to take a pay cut? Hell no. Do I want to keep my job? Hell yes.
I was talking to a friend in
Labels: business practices, dismay, dying newsroom, fear, layoffs, media ownership, the industry, union
continue...Friday, September 26, 2008
Layoff Blues
I just got really scared.I’m sitting in my car in the parking lot outside my job with the car running and Raphael Saadiq playing on the stereo and I feel like I’m about to hyperventilate.
I just left one coworker in my office while she was printing out her resume to potentially shop around at a job fair this weekend. My boss skipped out early. She was laid off yesterday and has been mentally checked out since. The guy in our office who got laid off kept plugging away at stories today, just like always, except that his flow was constantly interrupted with phone calls he’d take in the hallway. My guess is job offers and financial matters.
This is what it feels like to be in a dying industry, I suppose.
At first, I was angry. Angry that all 30 of our cuts had to be borne by the news department. Angry at management for refusing to acknowledge the value we add. That without us, the paper will be nothing but a multi-page advertisement. But they don’t listen to me.
In two weeks, my job will change. They told us that the bureau system as we know it will be gone as of Oct. 10. I turn 25 two days later and return to work that Monday to a newsroom full of uncertainty and trepidation. Happy Birthday to me.
I was talking to a photographer when the first layoffs were announced. He asked me if I’d been shopping my resume around. I had, I told him, but there was a problem. The places I’d been shopping it to were having hiring freezes or worse – the people I’d been cultivating relationships with for years had taken buyouts. He told me I’d be fine. I told him I have no marketable skills. He laughed and tried to reassure me that I did.
I don’t.
I’m a newspaper reporter in a world that increasingly is telling us that they don’t want to read newspapers. I’m a newspaper reporter in a business where management feels it’s more prudent to cut news staff than advertising or production. I’m an average news reporter in an economy where I’m competing for the few available jobs with people much more experienced and way more talented than I.
Thank God that for now, at least, I’m safe. I know that when the next round of layoffs comes, I’ll be in the class that gets cut. And I have no idea where I’d go. What do you do when the industry you fell in love with as a kid doesn’t want you anymore?
I have some management experience, filling in as bureau chief when my boss was out. Maybe I can manage a coffee shop. I call in updates and write breaking news for the blog sometimes. Maybe I can be a telemarketer. I have years of practice taking things that people say and do and rehashing them for a new audience. Maybe I can be a history teacher.
I was talking to one of my old competitors the other day. She left the local paper and went to go work for the local theatre company in the marketing department. She gave me comp tickets to a show the other night. Says she loves her job. Maybe she has the right idea.
What scared me most as I packed up my things and walked to my car, what has me writing this blog on my laptop in my Cavalier, is that it’s not so much that I can’t do anything else. It’s that I don’t want to. But I’m coming to realize increasingly that wanting something doesn’t make it so.
Labels: dismay, dying newsroom, layoffs, the industry
continue...Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Layoffs
I'm not really sure how to start this post. So I just will.Today, the company announced that they are laying off 30 people from the news department.
We knew the layoffs were coming. We knew they'd happen by mid October, but that's all they told us. We didn't know how the cuts were coming, who would be affected, or anything.
I knew something was wrong as I walked up to the building this afternoon. I'd just come from a water rate hike hearing and was coming to the newsroom for the first time today. I saw a photographer standing outside on his cell phone, clutching a Guild newsletter. I knew we'd gotten some news about the layoffs. I just didn't know what.
As I made my way up to my office, I got a text from a friend in the main newsroom.
When were you hired? I just lost my job.
I rushed downstairs to her hangout spot -- a place behind the building she often goes to smoke handrolled cigarettes -- to make sure she was okay. She seemed fine, and I didn't really know what else to do. She wanted to get back into the newsroom to finish the day. So I let her. Upstairs in my office, I learned that one of my newly-married, soon-to-be a father, coworkers had been laid off.
I was hired in January 2006 officially. The cut off date for layoffs was May 30, 2006. Just a few months seperated me from unemployment. They took all of the part-timers firts, and a handful of full-timers got caught in the mix as well.
I've never felt so bad about having a job.
Labels: dismay, dying newsroom, layoffs, writer's guild
continue...Thursday, August 21, 2008
It's always darkest before dawn
For some reason, I thought I was safe.My paper had gone through buyouts in the years before I came to call it home. Our staff was already so thin, I knew that really, there was no fat to trim.
At Unity, as I went booth to booth hearing tales of recruiters who wanted to hire, but couldn't, I had a little bit of satisfaction in the fact that I had a job and for the moment, my newsroom was remaining in tact.
Not so much anymore.
Midnight was the deadline for employees willing to take the buyout that the company offered days after I left UNITY. I got the call that we'd be trimming some lean while I was at a court reporting conference in Reno.
I stepped out of the session to have my boss read me details on my buyout offer. I don't remember the details, but I think it was something like $4,000 and maybe another $4,000 in medical coverage.
Peanuts, even by industry standards.
So I chalked it up and readied myself for whatever would come. I had good clips and contacts, so I'd milk them dry if I got laid off. Until then, I was going to go back to my job and work like nothing had changed.
But things are changing.
Come Sept. 12 or so, the 22 people who took the buyout across the company (here, Dallas and Riverside, Calif.) will be gone. Among them will be my friends, Scotty and Mark. And I almost think I'm more sad about seeing them go than anything. I would barely make it past the cubicle pod they shared when I went down to visit the newsroom because I'd be wrapped up in conversations with them, laughing and joking and somehow learning at the same time. I'm going to miss that.
The 22 people who took the buyout may not be enough, as the company hoped for 10 more to take the offer. We'll find out in the coming days if we'll resort to layoffs. If so, part-timers will go first, and then jobs will be taken by seniority.
Mark spoke with The Providence Phoenix and offered these thoughts on the buyout. Says The Phoenix: He described how a previous buyout opened fresh paths for him, including the chance to cover the State House, and in terms of younger staffers, he says, "Now it's going to be their opportunity."
My God, I hope he's right.
Labels: buyouts, dismay, dying newsroom, layoffs, the industry, union, writer's guild
continue...Friday, April 04, 2008
Tale of Two Stories
I'm feeling some kinda way even though I know its just me being bratty.
So, I busted my hump last week (before I went on vacay) to bang out a story on the 40th Anniversary of the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I know you're probably thinking: MLK? In Rhode Island? Err?
Well, I'd pitched the story -- a look at how MLK has impacted the current generation and how his legacy is holding up -- a while back. Somehow, it got lost in the shuffle and they assigned another great reporter to do the story. Turns out MLK visited RI 3 times and, of course, he went to school in Boston. So it's not that far fetched.
Anyway, I hear about the reassignment, my boss lobbies for me, and the reporter (who had no clue I'd pitched the story first) and I work out a plan. We decide to do two parallel stories -- I'll focus on the young people and he'll focus on the civil righters who are still alive.
Great.
So I report, write and gather audio. The whole time, wires are crossed downstairs (codeword for "main newsroom"). Chaos ensues. (Okay, maybe not chaos, but some serious miscommunication.)
No one knows when the story will run - Sunday or today. No photographer shows up for my assignment at a local elementary school. My boss tells me to write like it's running Sunday. I'm amped because I know that with this much copy, they have to give us good play. Downstairs is concerned because there is no audio to go with the stories. I cull through my digital recorder files and hand over usable bits to them. They are grateful. I ask about getting a photog over to the elementary school to take some pics of the kids. I hear nothing back. In checking with the school to get the ages of some kids, I learn that a photog indeed, is at the school and is taking pictures.
Great! I think.
I leave to go on vacation and check the Web site online.
There is no audio. There are no pictures of multicultural children. From the placement on the Web site, I can tell the story did not get great play.
Sigh.
When I get into the office, before I log onto my computer, before I check my messages, I go an dget a copy of the Sunday paper. I look on the front for my blyine. I look inside. Nothing. I turn to the local front. There, above a story about a Curves for tattooed women, is my story about MLK's legacy.
I take solace in the fact that I did a story about MLK in Rhode Island and did it at least fairly well. I hear through my editor that the other reporter's story is going to run on the anniversary. The Web producers tell me they'll launch all of the audio on Friday. I smile and nod.
Today, when I picked up the paper, I felt like I'd gotten slapped in the face.
The anniversary was the A1 centerpiece.
The story, admittedly, was great. I enjoyed it. But I couldn't help but feel a pang of envy that this story got such great play (and the benefit of my audio in the package) while mine was relegated to the local front.
I'm not saying my story was as good as his, or as relevant. I'm just saying. I felt some kinda way because of the way the two stories were treated. I may not have any basis for this, but I know it's messed me up today something serious.
It's just kinda like, man.
That sucks.
*Kicks an errant can in the office*
Labels: dismay, frustration, musings, political coverage
continue...Friday, February 15, 2008
How do you cover a beat better?
Hell has nothing on the week I just had.The School Committee postponed a vote on the teacher's contract. The teacher's union cut the board some slack and not pulling the work to rule card on the district as they had last semester. A suspected murderer was arraigned and sentenced on a parole violation. A dispised former fire marshal retired. The pension board saw its hands tied because the fire department contract guarantees the marshal's pension. The former town manager is looking to sue the town. Oh, and there's a blood drive to commemorate the five year anniversary of the worst fire in Rhode Island history.
My town is popping. And that's a good thing. But all that popping just leaves me pooped.
In between this rapid-fire week, I scheduled interviews almost every day this week, which meant my days were long and full. I just filed my last story of the week -- on the murder suspect -- and my back hurts from sitting at my desk.
Beyond that, I'm starting to kind of feel inadequate. (Way to bury the lede, huh?)
See, two of the stories I had to write this week -- the town manager suing the town and the fire marshal retiring -- I was beat on. Scooped, respectfully, by a local TV station (which was slipped the confidential document) and the Associated Press.
So not only did I spend my week essentially switching gears as news broke midday, but I spent most of it feeling crappy about getting beat. It really hit me today as I sat in Panera, eating a chicken caesar salad after attending the murder arraignment, because that's when my boss called me about the town manager threatening a lawsuit.
I put my head down on the wood panelled windowsill as the chorus to this song played over and over in my head. I found a pen and took notes on a recycled paper napkin. This week would not end. My manager said she could see if someone from the Metro desk could cover it, but that would only make me feel worse, like I couldn't handle my own beat.
So I cancelled an interview I'd scheduled for the afternoon, headed into the office, made calls, went back to the court house to see if any papers had been filed for the lawsuit and hounded the town solicitor.
I did the story. It's running tomorrow. But I don't know if I can keep this up. I don't like this feeling. So, I'm turning to you, Ten95 readers.
How do keep from getting beat in a culture where you're one of four reporters in a bureau that, in its heyday, had probably 10? I check the cop logs. I have good sources. But I'm competing against 3 reporters who cover my town for the local paper, TV and the wires. How do I cover my beat better?
Labels: burnout, dismay, Job survival, musings, the industry
continue...Friday, January 18, 2008
I Wonder...
A question for all you fellow journos.How many other people review your work before it's published or put on air?
Do you have an editor, a copy editor and a section editor?
Or is it a line producer, followed by a supervising producer?
Here at the wire, it's a deputy editor, followed by the national editor. And that's for every piece of copy that's put out on the wire -- as many as ten stories in an hour.
So humor me this... how many people do you think saw this...
...before it went to press?
Apparently no one who in the offices of GolfWeek saw a problem before the issue hit newsstands. But now? Well, now that folks are crying foul, GolfWeek is doubling back -- issuing an apology, removing the graphic from its site and reportedly firing the editor at the helm.
But clearly, Dave Seanor wasn't the only person to have seen cover before it went to print. Has anyone talked to the cover artist? The guy in charge of the cover artist? The guy in charge of the guy in charge of the cover artist?
No one saw an issue here?
No one said, "Umm, dude... this is a noose"?
*sigh*
I'm just wondering.
Labels: controversy, dismay, diversity, lessons, musings, the industry
continue...Friday, October 19, 2007
It's been a long time...
...I shouldn't have left you without a dope post to read through.I've been in the trenches. Working on the launch of the redesigned website for the Golden Gate [X]press at San Francisco State University. We've got the new front (home) page working. The rest will come soon enough. That's the good news. And the bad...
It's been a trial and a half running a staff of 22 online producers. And my tenure here is only half over. And it's made me reexamine the reasons why I chose to be an editor.
I'll tell you this: some people have no business even studying journalism, let only being on somebody's staff. And I won't elaborate, because this isn't the place. Plus, some of these people still have time to make me eat my words. (I would love to eat my words right about now. I'm hungry. Hell, the website's hungry.)
Signing off for now. More to come.
--Slightly disheartened online managing editor in San Francisco
P.S. Let me know what you think of the new front page. Again: Golden Gate [X]press Online
Labels: dismay, frustration, student press
continue...Friday, October 05, 2007
Why MJ? WHY?: An Update
Marion Jones, with her mother, arrive at a federal courthouse on Oct. 5. (AP)A little over a year ago, my fellow-Ten95er Darren - posted this piece about the way The New York Times handled track and field star Marion Jones' drug testing that showed she was free of performance enhancing drugs.
Well, it turns out things aren't always as they seem.
Well, it turns out things aren't always as they seem.
While Jones' sample did come out clean, today, she was to plead guilty to lying to officials about taking designer steroids from 1999 to 2001 in a New York court. As a result, she may be stripped of the five medals she won at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
Jones' about face doesn't negate Young Sands' comments that we should give people the same amount of play when they're cleared that journos give when folks are caught in the act.
It just kind of sucks that, after all, Jones' lied.
Gotta say I was rooting for her. Ah well. Such is life.
Sigh.
Jones' about face doesn't negate Young Sands' comments that we should give people the same amount of play when they're cleared that journos give when folks are caught in the act.
It just kind of sucks that, after all, Jones' lied.
Gotta say I was rooting for her. Ah well. Such is life.
Sigh.
Labels: corrections, dismay, sports
continue...Thursday, August 09, 2007
Rock the Vote?
A quick rant for you. I apologize in advance.This year, I'm serving on NABJ's Elections Committee. Today, we hosted a candidate forum where members could talk to the candidates and ask them questions. It was held immediately after the Senator Clinton speech today, which a majority of the membership attended.
The committee prepared for everything. We had index cards ready to go. The committee was ready.
Tell me why no more than 40 people showed up? Or rather, stuck around. The ballroom was almost full for Clinton. For us, the entire membership could fit into three rows.
Are you serious?
I know the candidates are accessible and have been campaigning all week long, but this was the chance for members to get real answers to their questions and compare candidates side by side. For those who attended, I believe the forum was valuable. For those who missed it, you missed some insightful questions and answers. Your bad.
As an committee member, it honestly disappointed and seriously angered me that people just didn't care.
Don't complain when our budget deficit doesn't increase. If you aren't engaged, you have no right to complain.
As my fellow Ten95'er said: "I hope this isn't an indication of the national election (voter turnout)."
Me too, honey. Me too.
Labels: Clinton, dismay, NABJ, Sin City
continue...Saturday, August 04, 2007
Writers beware? ...RIP Chauncey Bailey
When I heard the name 'Chauncey Bailey' and the words 'gunned down in Oakland' spill out of a TV news anchor's mouth Thursday morning as I got ready for another day at work, I paused. In fact, the name Chauncey Bailey, alone, caught my attention because I felt like I knew the name, but I just could not remember how.It wasn't until I got to work that I actually realized how bazaar the news was. The name was familiar because I had seen it several times on an Oakland Tribune byline. The Tribune is a paper I have a connection to, both personally and professionally. And on top of all that, I'd only ever heard that Bailey was a good guy...the editor of the Oakland Post, an African American paper that was delivered to my church every Sunday. My mentor, Bob Butler, sent out a message to the Young Black Journalist email listserv announcing and reflecting on the news of Bailey's death on Thursday morning. It was then that I began to reflect on what it all meant.
Bailey was gunned down by an employee of Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland on Thursday. The employee confessed that he killed him because he was angry over stories Bailey had written about the bakery, its employees and leaders in the past. According to Oakland Tribune reports, Bailey had been working on a story about the group and its finances.
When this news broke Friday, I realized just how serious of a job being a journalist is. Your work has consequence, both good and bad. And I knew that. But I never thought that seeking the truth about your community and reporting it could get you killed.
Just last month, a mother approached me about her concerns that ice cream trucks were selling realisitic toy guns to children in Hayward, Calif. So I wrote a story about it. The woman attended a City Council meeting to voice her complaints, and I wrote a story about that too. Eventually, Hayward's chief of police called a meeting with ice cream truck vendors in Hayward and demanded they stop selling toy guns from their trucks or face reprimand. And I wrote a story.
Never before had I experienced writing something that affected visible change or action on the part of leadership. So I drove home Thursday night to share that with my parents. As my mom fried chicken, she, my step dad and I talked about what had happened to Bailey that morning. Both of them were concerned...because most headlines and anchors read and reported a "Journalist gunned down in Oakland." They thought of me. Jokingly, they asked if any ice cream truck vendors might seek revenge because I had called attention to the fact that some of them had been selling, to six-year-olds, imitation firearms meant for people 18-years-old and up.
Did Bailey ever wonder if writing the stories about the Black Muslim bakery would put him in danger physically? I shiver at the possibility that he knew the stories could possibly get him killed.
It makes me wonder: how careful (or un-careful) are we as journalists when we sit down to write stories that will have some consequence (positive or negative) for the stakeholders?
More on Chauncey Bailey.
Labels: dismay, for journalism's sake, frustration
continue...