Duh: Older workers important to companies

I believe sgreenwell makes a good point.

Balance is necessary. Running off or losing almost all of your older, experienced staffers is not a good idea merely to save money in the short-term. Believing the young "mobile journalists" can step right in is just wishful thinking.

It would be like having a police department have all of its 25- or 30-year officers retire at one time because they could begin taking their pensions. They avoid problems by trying to stagger those retirements, planning ahead with hiring younger officers and putting older mentors with the young bucks to transfer the experience. They also might offer the older officers the chance to work part-time or have some role so their still visible in the department and community.

It may be, financially, the 'right' thing to do right now to cut, slash, buy out, fire or whatever to get costs down in newspapers. But losing the experienced journalists, and those who will stand up to newsroom management to voice an opinion, hurts very much in the long term.

Readers notice the losses, too. We all have known for years that younger readers aren't picking up newspapers. Even if they read online or get the tweet-feeds I don't believe they become as deeply engaged. It's just another 140-character snippet to them in the hundreds they may get during the day.

Readers of the physical paper learn to like, or dislike, specific writers, columnists and features or sections. When the beloved columnist in any section retires, dies or is replaced, we all hear the comments: "Hate to see him/her go" and "I don't enjoy it now like when he/she was there." Losing that community touchstone, not to mention the experience and possible leadership in the newsroom, really does hurt and a survey shouldn't have to be done to tell anyone in management.

 

It's amazing how much experience can turn your product around.

My last couple of months in sports, Rhody & I were a two-man squad who'd been together on our own for about two years or so. We were in perfect rhythm and putting out great--and I mean great--sections. It was such a difference from when we started because we had to go through those experimental phases of layout and teach ourselves around our shortcomings but, man, when we were clicking there was nothing like it.

Of course, then I moved on for a higher paying position in the news side and, try as he may, my replacement is still learning the ropes and you can see the difference.

I think that's what the higher ups don't understand/care about. And we were only rocking three or four years of experience under our belts. It takes time to do this job the right way and losing that kind of experience is a brand-killer that takes a long time to recover from.

 

This won't be a problem going forward. Young reporters and editors growing up in the business will fill the few management opportunities that are available and the rest will move out of the business as their salaries are capped. Like it or not, that's the new model. Papers will back-fill with more young people as 30- and 40-somethings move on. I doubt we'll ever see an average newsroom again with dozens of mid- to late-career reporters and editors making $70K-plus. Shoot, I know a veteran copy editor who was making $50K working three days a week at the Los Angeles Times seven or eight years ago. Those days are long gone.

 

The idea that in the old days, there was usually a bigger and better paper for a talented young person to move on to can't be overstated. It's why I moved so many times (well, take the "talented" part for what it's worth) in my first 10 years in the business but have been at three places since 1987. The corollary is what I always told younger people in lower jobs at my biggest place -- you want to get somewhere, you might have to leave the comfort zone of this place and take take a flyer at a bigger beat but a smaller paper somewhere else.

 

One thing to remember is that older workers are often the ones with the most sources, who get the tips on news, even when it's not their beat. If newspapers want to stay on top of things, they'd be well-served to keep a few of them around. Same goes for the desk. The copy editors and designers who can do a lot of work fast and well are the ones who have done it for a long time. That would seem to be cost-effective, too. I think a lot of times when you get too many layers of management, it really slows down the process as you get too many cooks in the kitchen on stories.

 

You understand newspapers don't really want any employees, young or old, producing content, right? There's a reason Arianna Huffington is rich and famous, and it ain't her political views. It's the envy of the industry for her business model.

 

The two copy editors from my first stop who were head, shoulders, knees and toes better than any of the other copy editors there and always took the time to give feedback and were just unbelievable in every sense of the word. As someone else mentioned, they knew more about how to put out the section than anyone else there.

Both were forced out a couple years back. Both were in their 50s and neither has found work since.

 

Except in the (frequent) cases when the so-called deadwood is anything but dead.

 

I remember the Deadwood, from my University of Iowa days ...

And yeah, it was anything but dead ... provided you liked pinball machines, thick cigarette smoke and Iowa City hippies.