More sobering news. I need a beer . . .

Delving into the dicey question of what rate of return might be deemed fair on a sustained investment in what are clearly diminishing assets in the current news/information environment is the third rail, here . . . if something isn't going to exist in anything resembling its current form in twenty years, 5% ain't 'near enough, folks.

 

This kind of news makes me anything but sober.

 

It's really bad and it's only going to get worse...

 

I always bring this complaint to my mother when we talk and since I just graduated college she's always like "Well you shouldn't throw your degree away! You went to college for four years to get that, don't give up now!" Then I talk about how the future is uncertain and she says "There'll always be a future for sports writers, you might just have to move online." She's convinced all newspapers will be electronic in the future, which may be true but what does that mean for us?
She keeps suggesting I get a job at rivals.com, don't ask why, that's the site she always suggests when talking about writing online.

 

Where do I go? I have to go back to school if I want out. And I'm 31.

 

I get so tired of hearing this "we're going under" bullshit from corporate newspaper folks. Fact is, if 90 percent of the newspapers were privately owned, you wouldn't hear a word about "the dramatic decline" in revenue and subscriptions.

Look at the profit margins. I don't give a shit what anyone says, a 28 percent profit margin like the one we had at our place last year is out-fuckin-standing. The guy running the local Texaco would go tap dancing through the parking lot tossing out $100 bills if he had that sort of bottom line. But in our business, what we get is a publisher who's acting like there's a fuckin' eviction notice on the front door and the lights are flickering.

Why? Because we're "not meeting our goals." WTF? The top five guys at Gannett (the company that owns "hard hit" USA Today) last year took home damn near $10 million in bonuses. So, somebody's meeting something.

Newspapers aren't going anywhere. There will always be a demand for the daily newspaper (whether it be in print or online). Always. People can't get local stories and in-depth coverage of local news anywhere else. They just can't. And no blog or eight-second local TV report is going to change that.

 

I agree. I've been telling an editor friend of mine "I'm getting out" for two years. I haven't done it yet. I MUST go back to school. It's a must.

But then I have no clue what to take. I have a two-year journo diploma, not a degree.

 

The is a D_B. I can't find it, but this is a re-post of a N.Y. Times piece.

 

Moddy is 100 percent right. I'm 34. I've done OK for myself as a sportswriter. I guarantee you I will not still be working for a paper in the next year or so...

 

No one, I repeat no one, has 28% profit margins.