Brenda Starr has been chasing stories for the urban rag, ‘The Flash’ since 1940 and even though the ravishing redhead (who in real (cartoon) life should be about 80) doesn’t look a day over 30, she still has a job. Lucky for her she doesn’t work for The McClatchy Company, who among other newspapers, owns the Kansas City Star and the Sacramento Bee.
McClatchy is laying off another 1400 people after already booting out 2000 reporters, editors and other newsies earlier this year.
The New York Times reports today:
“The nation’s biggest newspaper chains, said Monday that it would cut its work force by 10 percent, or around 1,400 people, after having already eliminated about 2,000 jobs over 18 months.
As the newspaper industry suffers through both a long-term contraction and a sluggish economy, McClatchy has been hit harder than most, because it relies heavily on the troubled California and Florida markets. McClatchy, based in Sacramento, Calif., reported Monday that for the first five months of the year, its revenue dropped 14.2 percent from the prior year.
The deepest cut will hit The Miami Herald, one of McClatchy’s largest papers, which told its staff on Monday that it would eliminate 250 jobs, or 17 percent of its work force.
In a memorandum to McClatchy employees, Howard C. Weaver, vice president for news, said that across the company, 310 to 320 newsroom positions would be cut, or about 9 percent of the total. In recent years, McClatchy has bucked the industry trend by avoiding deep staff cuts, particularly in its newsrooms.”
Yeah, we get it. No one (but us) reads the paper anymore. It’s all YOUR fault. Stop reading it online. THAT’S no fun! Once the Boomers are all dead the printing press will be buried with them. Sad.
” Revenue at McClatchy’s newspapers fell 15.4 percent this year through May from 2007, the company reported Monday. Ad revenue dropped more than 22 percent at its California and Florida papers, reflecting the severity of the housing crisis there. Classified ads for real estate and employment are off about 36 percent, accounting for more than half the decline in revenue.
In April, McClatchy reported a first-quarter loss of just under $1 million on $488 million in revenue.”
Yikes! But who will cover the news? The kid on the street with an iPhone? Maybe.
But take it from us, there are ways for ex-reporters to make a living doing what they love to do; write.
You can of course try and go the Public Relations route, although that’s tough to break into these days unless you’re a female around 23 who wears flip-flops to work and earns about 30k. Do you really want to sell your soul and become a mini-Scotty McClellan? I didn’t think so. What you have to do is use your super-power journalistic skills to find writing gigs. Research and sign up for freelance writing jobs on sites such as;
http://www.journalismjobs.com
http://www.sunoasis.com/
http://www.mediabistro.com/
http://www.elance.com/p/landing/provider.html
It’s not easy though, there are millions of us out there pitching the same story and freelance money is drying up BUT, there is work. Someone has to write the news- right? And pick up some new skills while you have that downtime instead of lying around watching The Bold and the Beautiful. Learn how to blog and how to podcast. But if you love being a journalist don’t go to the dark side and become a PR wonk. Stay the course and hope that bitch Brenda finally retires.
1 response so far ↓
tommyboy // June 19, 2008 at 5:52 pm
More and more newspapers are taking hits and instead of hiring free lance writers they cut their content. When are they going to wise up that their are qualified reporters out there who can write just as well from a home office than a news room?