Newspapers: Inspiring the Next Generation of Journalists

Romenesko has this NPR piece on the latest round of newspaper job cuts to hit the industry, including The New York Times and Knight Ridder's Philly papers. I particularly liked what Zack Stalberg, ex-Philadelphia Daily News editor had to say: "The youngest people in particular are thinking whether the newspaper industry is the right place for them."

Also recently, the SF Chronicle put out a call for voluntary buy outs to cut staff and got way more people raising their hands than they needed. People are rushing for the exits and those who remain are wondering if they should be celebrating or cursing that they get to keep their jobs. A similar thing happened a few years ago when I worked at the Contra Costa Times, just across the bay from San Francisco. Also a KR paper, the Times wanted to cut costs to boost profits. First it trimmed the size of the paper and told us to tell readers that it was a desire to make the paper easier to handle, not cost savings, that motivated the change. Lying to your readers is always a great way to burnish the brand of a business that relies more than almost any other on reader trust.

As I recall, they also removed the water coolers. When that didn't generate enough dough, they of course moved on to jettisoning people. They asked for "volunteers" who would accept a buyout and the response was like that of passengers on a sinking ship. And the bosses were sincerely shocked that so many people wanted to jump on the lifeboats. The most telling thing for the health, or lack thereof, of the newspaper biz was that every single person I knew who took the buyout or got so stressed out waiting to see if they'd get to take it and quit, left journalism all together, so disgusted were they with what they'd seen. There were some really talented people in the bunch. A real shame.