Labor Day: No Picnic for News Workers
Labor Day 2008 marks an unhappy time for workers in the newspaper industry.
Layoffs, buyouts and closings at news outlets across the country dominated reports this year on how newspapers are doing. Few newspapers have unions or guilds and those staffers still working felt demands not just to do more with less, but to adapt to unprecedented changes in the way news is gathered and delivered. At one major newspaper, even the newsroom is a thing of the past. Reporters get a cell phone, laptop and video camera and are nomadic “mobile journalists,” or mo-jos.
The viability of news operations as large as the Star-Ledger has come into question. Cuts and consolidations have not improved the bottom line sufficiently and unless a couple hundred people take buyouts, the newspaper may soon be up for sale.
Most newspapers offer online editions now, but the question of how to make money from them is still largely unresolved. Traditional advertising has been impacted by Craig’s List and other innovations. All these changes and more are chronicled in Jim Romenesko’s column for the Poynter Institute and at Editor & Publisher, along with the usual fare of personnel changes and milestones. The precariousness of the news business makes me fear for the future of young journalists, who deserve and need to get paid for their work.
I have been retired for five years now and have never since set foot in the Courier News building on Route 22. My freelancing was all done from Plainfield. The only time I see my successors is when they come to Plainfield. In mid-2005, Barbara Kerr and I started a blog about city doings, which I continue to produce now by myself. I receive no compensation for producing Plaintalker, but I enjoy the freedom of blogging.
Meanwhile, a lot of my former colleagues have left the news business for more stable media jobs at trade publications or as corporate spokespersons. Most have a long way to go before retirement. With news organizations slashing staff and freezing pension benefits, workers have little choice than to look elsewhere for job security.
If you read a newspaper today, give a thought to those who put it together. By next Labor Day, many will be out of jobs in the print media. Those remaining will have fewer job rights. Without unions or guilds, the survivors’ only recourse may be a few whispered prayers to St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalists.
--Bernice Paglia
Layoffs, buyouts and closings at news outlets across the country dominated reports this year on how newspapers are doing. Few newspapers have unions or guilds and those staffers still working felt demands not just to do more with less, but to adapt to unprecedented changes in the way news is gathered and delivered. At one major newspaper, even the newsroom is a thing of the past. Reporters get a cell phone, laptop and video camera and are nomadic “mobile journalists,” or mo-jos.
The viability of news operations as large as the Star-Ledger has come into question. Cuts and consolidations have not improved the bottom line sufficiently and unless a couple hundred people take buyouts, the newspaper may soon be up for sale.
Most newspapers offer online editions now, but the question of how to make money from them is still largely unresolved. Traditional advertising has been impacted by Craig’s List and other innovations. All these changes and more are chronicled in Jim Romenesko’s column for the Poynter Institute and at Editor & Publisher, along with the usual fare of personnel changes and milestones. The precariousness of the news business makes me fear for the future of young journalists, who deserve and need to get paid for their work.
I have been retired for five years now and have never since set foot in the Courier News building on Route 22. My freelancing was all done from Plainfield. The only time I see my successors is when they come to Plainfield. In mid-2005, Barbara Kerr and I started a blog about city doings, which I continue to produce now by myself. I receive no compensation for producing Plaintalker, but I enjoy the freedom of blogging.
Meanwhile, a lot of my former colleagues have left the news business for more stable media jobs at trade publications or as corporate spokespersons. Most have a long way to go before retirement. With news organizations slashing staff and freezing pension benefits, workers have little choice than to look elsewhere for job security.
If you read a newspaper today, give a thought to those who put it together. By next Labor Day, many will be out of jobs in the print media. Those remaining will have fewer job rights. Without unions or guilds, the survivors’ only recourse may be a few whispered prayers to St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalists.
--Bernice Paglia
posted by Bernice at 8:43 AM
1 Comments:
The internet has set in motion a social & political revolution that has altered human engagement. I like to read the newspaper for it is able to capture more intimately comings and goings of daily events. Nevertheless, its need to satisfy advertisers and political agendas has diminished its voice or conscience of our great country.
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