Columnistosaurus

"So while newspapers must, yes they must, get on with the future of journalism in whatever form it takes, they also must maintain the cash flow that allows them to build that future. "

This message brought to you by Dave Kindred, newspaper management representative.

I'm worried more about discussing jobs and opportunities for journalists and journalism students, than how much money a particular medium makes.

Despite a loss of readership and revenue, newspapers continue to make money because they're killing jobs in response to those losses.

Advertising is down, as are subscriptions. Newspapers will not be part of any kind of future of journalism, because at some point they'll run out of people to cut.

It is much more productive to seek out answers to whether or not money can be made on the Internet (even if we're sure it cannot, not in the same amounts) than it is to focus discussion on a medium whose ship has long since sailed.

 

Sounds good. Look forward to the thread.

 

I think I understand what DD is getting at here, but I think reaching that goal is very, very difficult. But I also think he could pull it off.

When people say Mike Royko or Jim Murray, I really do not need to mention which city they worked, because they pretty much became institutions in their market. No matter what medium or what length the story is, will the future of journalism have writers in each city that people associate with as being the voice of the city?

Wilbon could have become that in DC, but he now works for ESPN more than the Post. I think DD's goal is to become a Royko for the city he writes, but jumping ship to a magazine or a national website takes away the dream of being an iconic figure for the city.

Am I on the right track here, DD?

 

Golly Gee whillikers, you don't exactly sound sincere here.

Silly me. I keep forgetting how limited the board's media world is. Was NewspapersportsWRITERS.com taken?

Someone else, who cares more than I do about identifying such people, can start it. Seen enough "who are the Young f$#%ing STUDS!!!?!?!?!!?" threads here in the past.

But I'll be happy to show up in such a thread and laugh at the idea that any young person should strive to be a newspaper columnist.

 

Piotr is right. That myopic view -- or any such debate -- is an exercise in futility.
Irrelevant stance and discussion.
Anybody, no matter their accomplishments, who says they're a columnist: "always have been, always will be" -- has lost their way and should understand the current climate when disseminating information to young people.
Sorry to state.

 

I'm guessing Fishwrapper refers to me when he speaks of a columnist who has "lost their way and should understand the current climate when disseminating information to young people."

I want to make one thing clear here because, apparently, I've failed to do that. I am not insisting on a future in newspapers; I am insisting on a future in journalism, in whatever medium carries the journalism. I simply do not believe that journalism, the reporting of news, will go away.

As for being a columnist -- the current new-media online phenom, Grantland.com, is America's largest gathering of columnists. So what if they write 4,000-words? They're still columns, still viewpoint and opinion, only at numbing length.

If in my "disseminating information to young people" I show one student that it's fun to be a reporter, I will be a happy camper. I don't care if that young person takes a job with a newspaper or a website or a TV station; maybe he or she becomes a documentarian using all the high-tech tools to tell stories. As long as it's a job in journalism, good.

 

Dave, I know the Grantland project well.
Except for a few of them, they're all freelancers. (This statement doesn't include the inside editorial staff).
It's a project in its infancy, and will grow. But it is a singular project whose viability in the long is unknown and right now is being propped up by an enormous conglomerate and one of the most-read personalities on the Web. It's easy to pick the one celebrated growth spot while ignoring/discounting the overwhelming evidence of the past eight years.
Just the same as using a Paul Krugman piece and stating, "See!"

 

Sounds better to me than, "write as much as you damn well please, whether the topic needs that many words or not, or whether you have the chops to make thousands of words sing or not, or whether you're knowledgeable and/or source-rich or not." And you damn well know that the vast, vast majority of stuff put out by bloggers doesn't pass those tests. But I understand it's fun to be the iconoclast and snicker as you take your shots at Kindred, which you surely feel is like shooting your pistols into the dinosaur's corpse. Your parting from newspapers must have been really abrupt and very bitter.

 

I'll take a flyer at understanding what you're saying.

You think there is no future in any medium for anyone interested in journalism.

Is that it?

I should also say that as a writer who did a book with a subtitle saying "A Great Newspaper Fights for Its Life," I surely do not discount the last eight years of decline. I just don't think it means the end of the craft.

 

Shrug. I meant it. Like I meant: "Well, good" when I wrote it to Kindred.

 

I agree it's not the end of the craft. It will evolve, like everything else.

With that said ...

... and without giving too much away, I came from a place that had over 1,200 journalists in a newsroom at one point. When I left, there were just over 500. Some of the best journalists in the world.

Wave after wave, friend after friend kicked out the door. Many still unemployed or under-employed and their 99 weeks of assistance long gone. I know. I get the emails, the inquiries.

The other side of this? I interviewed a "kid" from Northwestern just before Thanksgiving. He was better/more educated than I (couple of degrees, graduate degree). He was looking at a $14-an-hour contract job ... and he came to me/us with over $170,000 in student debt.

So, please excuse me if I'm not buying the "dream-big" or the "what-we-need" soliloquy.