I've been a newspaper journalist since 1979, and much as it grieves me to say it, the end of newspapers as we have long known them is very nearly at hand. The industry is bleeding jobs, and new young people are either a.) not entering the field, or b.) unable to find any jobs.
Now, I think that newspapers will survive in some form, most likely as Internet-only "web papers." But the Internet world will require only a tiny fraction of the work force of a profession that has been around in its current form more or less since the 1800s. I don't believe the print version of papers will be around much longer, except at a few very large or very small papers. I guess for the new generation coming up, the end of print papers will be a "who cares" event, as they don't read them anyway. But for those of us who grew up with the daily, or at least Sunday, paper, the loss will be palpable.
On a personal note, large-scale layoffs have yet again hit the newsroom of the paper I have worked at for 30 years, and this time the inevitable has happened and the bulk of the layoffs have hit the copy desk, which is where I work.
The new reality is that cost-cutting, in combination with the Internet, has made errors in news reports less unacceptable than was long the case. The (somewhat) good news for me, personally, is that I am one of only two regular copy desk employees to survive the carnage. The bad is that the writing is on the wall as it inevitably won't be long before the desk is deemed completely expendable. Because of the here-this-minute, gone-the-next nature of Internet news, I have long suspected that copy editing will become an extinct profession in the new "newspaper" world. And that time is almost at hand.
Anybody have a job? :)
I imagine you're too young to lament the passing of the daily newspaper. Younger generations dont have the kind of personal relationship with their local papers that previous generations did. And there is also a big difference between local papers and "national" papers like NY Times, Washington Post and USA Today. Local papers provide a very valuable function that even local TV stations generally don't, which is cover local government. And, oh yeah, the younger generation doesn't care about that either :)
About 2-years ago my son in Wichita Falls, TX asked me for some advice (the night before returning to Michigan after having spent a week there!). Him asking his old man for advice was a new experience (have learned over-time to "offer" advice ONLY when asked!).
Bottom line was he wanted my opinion about whether to take a full-time professorship at a university in that part of TX or stay with the newspaper where he was then in the one-only position of being the IT guy for the firm. He told me that all of the staff had received a 10% cut in pay within months of us talking about it...him included.
My response to him was to consider his current position. There was no promotion possibility - he was it (literally, a one-of-a-kind for that newspaper). He wasn't likely to qualify for any other position within the company. On the other hand, the professorship comes with lots of possibilities: tenure, benefits, new and interesting challenges and roles. As we discussed it the choice was clear. He jumped ship and is teaching full-time and has reasonable job security.
In my area community (Grand Rapids, Michigan) the newspaper is delivered 3-days a week (Sun - Wed - Fri). If I want a print copy of the newspaper it costs a dollar and can be picked up at a gas station or such... The cost for 3-days a week is about the same as when I was getting the paper 7-days a week delivered to the house ($83 for 3-monts). The "come on" to accept this program was that I can access through MLive.com a digital version of the paper - for free...
Print media is facing some difficult times. It affects all kinds of vocations: reporters, IT people, support people of all sorts...
In my own industry - tax preparation services - there is much discussion about the major changes at some point in the future that will essentially eliminate tax preparers. We already have "virtual tax preparation." This can be done simply by using a system like Skype or a program called logmein. I can interact with a taxpayer - all he/she needs to do is give me their basic data (W-2 for example) and their personal information and the return can be completed and approved by the taxpayer electronically. In fact there is an application out there right now that allows a person to scan their W-2 onto a cell phone/ipod/ipad (whatever!) and it places all the information in the correct box on the simplest of tax returns (Form 1040EZ)...
Ironically, it is harder for legislative bodies to keep up with the changes that the digital world is bring into the world. I was appalled to learn in a WSJ (Wall Street Journal) recently that for tax year 2011, that 1.3 million tax returns were affected by identity fraud/theft issues! That is absolutely astounding! People are now getting identify theft special codes from the IRS to be entered into their tax return to let the IRS know this return is for the real person... In the mean time seniors and retirees (for example) continue to be ripped off by scam after scam after scam - and the legal system is not able to keep up with the laws that give substance and meaning to what one might call "honorable" business. Ample other examples of the not-too-fast legal system approach is the many, many failures within financial systems - world wide.
I guess nobody said life would be easy or even fair... Nobody, however, said that by the time I reached "senior status" that things would change so fast it almost makes my head spin!
Thanks for sharing your observations about the newspaper industry in your neck of the woods!
everysooften
west Michigan
p.s. - if you were in my area I could get you into tax preparation - but you'd have to go through some training - at least it is part-time employment/seasonal - the rewards are completely dependent on what you do and how well... the satisfaction I get is serving the needs of people in a much-too-complex tax system and turning the bureaucracy around to work FOR - not AGAINST people! it really is all about people - customer service is the business of tax preparation... interested, send me a personal email and I will tell you more!