Are we rollin’ downhill like a snowball headed for hell?
With no kind of chance for the flag and the Liberty Bell?
I wish a Ford and a Chevy would still last 10 years, like they should.
Is the best of the free life behind us now? Are the good times really over for good?— Merle Haggard, “Are The Good Times Really Over?”
Last week, a bombshell came from San Jose, one that made me think again about what newspaper managers are really trying to accomplish with layoffs and buyouts. (Seems like assisted suicide, but no one’s called Michigan’s Finest, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, yet. Yet.)
One of the best illustrators in newsprint, Martin Gee, was laid off from the Mercury News. The mighty Merc was once a destination paper for many a visual journalist. The Merc is slowly becoming a shell of itself, because its ownership seeks to consolidate its operations with its other Bay Area holdings (which does make economic sense, don’t get me wrong) and because it seeks profitability with its large amount of debt (MediaNews, from what I hear, is heavily leveraged).
But San Jose isn’t the only place where top-flight journos are being let go. Martin’s layoff was one of nearly 1,000 in a week’s time. Isn’t THAT befuddling? We’ve seen more than 5,000 jobs cut in the first half of 2008. No one is safe, either: The St. Petersburg Times, the last paper anyone would expect to hit turbulence, has now thrown out the “L” word. What the hell happened?
Makes you wonder if we’re in the buggy whip business? (No.) Is our industry not poised for radical change? (It’s kicking and screaming its way into the new paradigm.) Can newspapers plunge into the future by keeping their best talent? (Doesn’t look that way.)
I have a little experience with job cuts, myself, though I actually felt a great deal of relief (almost instantly) when I walked out the door in Detroit Jan. 5, 2007. As I walked across the street to my car, the first call I made was to my girlfriend in Florida, made without even a hello. My first words: “I am no longer in the employ of….”
But the paper I left still had a lot of talent. Hell, I was overly expendable. But Martin Gee? This guy is arguably one of the top five illustrators in newspaperdom, and one of two superstars the Merc has, uh, had.
Managers in a few shops have been overheard lately saying things like ‘it’s time to self-lobotomize,’ or ‘we really need a good, strong drink or ten.’ It appears the good times are over for the big metros. And that’s too bad, because they have the wherewithall, the talent, the resources to do the best journalism. Our nation will suffer if we don’t have watchdog journalism. If we have to depend on pajama-clad bloggers*, we might as well kiss democracy goodbye. For the most part, there will only be agenda-driven screeds, and no newsgathering organization that citizens can truly rely on.
Television news is a headline service, at best. At its worst, it’s a cacophony of opinion cloaked as news. The Internet is filled with… a cacophony of opinion. Only newspapers are sober enough to help protect democracy at the local, state and federal levels — and incidentally, congrats to both Detroit newspapers for keeping the heat on municipal corruption. (That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout!) Plus, as a publisher in Pittsburgh so inelegantly said, “you can take a newspaper to the can.” And if you drop it in the bathroom, it’s 35 cents you’re out, not an expensive laptop.
The irony is that while American democracy is impossible without a well-informed citizenry, America will drown in a sea of information. None of that information will be much good — too much mindless entertainment fluff and not nearly enough oversight of public funds and politicians. Guess it’s too boring for our MTV attention spans.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to flip to 2A and see what Brangelina are (is?) up to. Maybe I’ll see a photo of Britney’s cellulite.
(NOTE: I don’t like entertainment news. Never did, never will. I don’t care if Britney Spears gained a pound, but you’ll damn well bet I care how the British pound is doing. And you should, too.)
*An incidental: For the bloggers, no respect. New York City police won’t even credential them.
This scares me as I am trying to enter this profession next year! I wrote a blog post about my future…
http://heraisesthebar.com/2008/07/06/the-good-times-cant-be-over/
You’re delusional if you think Martin Magee’s layoff is a sign of the sky falling. To me, it’s a sign of the company being sensible.
Earth to designers: If you post photos bashing your company, you don’t have a long future.
(NOTE FROM DOUG: I’d rather Martin chronicle the San Jose layoffs as news, even with the commentary, rather than sit on the sidelines in seeming disgrace, throwing potshots at former employers, virtually guaranteeing no re-entry into the profession without a major attitude adjustment. Martin’s photos show the horror of layoffs, which are gutting our industry in the name of short-term viability and jeopardizing the long-term. I don’t want to see newspapers die, even in the decimated state they seem to be in right now, but if they’re going to survive at all, there has to be a balance between healthy profits and quality. Layoffs don’t help with the latter, be they artists or copy editors. Capiche?)