More sobering news. I need a beer . . .

And how would you be if you did not go back to school?

Just a thought.

 

Got the paperwork right here. You tell me.

After breaking things down in several categories, at the bottom of the page, we've got newspaper totals.

Revenue: $40 million
Expense: $29 million
%: 28.8

 

I'm the same way... I was recently asked to speak at a college, which I've done each of the last several years and I told them,

"Unless you want me to come in and tell them all to change their majors immediately, you might want to find someone else..."

 

It really sucks, I had every intention of becoming a journalism prof after I get done with this busienss, but there is no way I can stand in front of a bunch of students and lead them to slaughter...

Seriously, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. I'd have less guilt working for the tobacco or gun lobby...

 

You're fired!

 

CNHI has some paper that do have those type of margins. Our newspaper had a 26% profit margin last year and they set a goal of 31% this year.

 

I have a hard time believing there won't be jobs for sports writers, though not likely not as many. People love to read about sports too much.

So if we're not working for newspapers in a few years where will we be? The Web maybe, but will we have as many local sites as we have local papers? Will there be more (or maybe more prominent) niche magazines and Web sites?

 

Fan mags are a waste of resources with Rivals.com and Scout.com around, though I doubt there are too many independent ones not affiliated with Scout or Rivals Web sites ("Packers Plus" comes to mind, though it's mostly a college phenomenon). I assume they just dump their Web content into a print publication anyway, a la ESPN: The Magazine.

 

I'm not necessarily talking about fan mags, where the subscribers pay to read a homer point of view.

In the years to come would there be a market for something like Lonestarfootball.com, a site that covered everything from high school football to the Cowboys and Texans, but wasn't a fan site affiliated with a particular team?

 

Whenever I read "There will always be a need for newpapers," for some reason I think of the poor soul who once made rotary telephones, saying: "There will always be a need for telephones!"

Yes, newspapers will always exist in some form, but I don't think that's the point. With declining ad revenue, few people are going to be able to make a living in this industry. College students have nothing nothing to fear. They're the ones who will get all the jobs. Not because they're brilliant. But because they'll work for nothing.

The people who are sweating this are the 45-year-olds with three kids, a mortgage and an annual 2 percent raise, if that. They're looking at 20 years until retirement with little hope of making more money. Find a new career? At that age? Possible, but not easy. In 10 years, the college students will be in the same, if not worse, position.

As for the poster who wrote there will always be a need for sportswriters, that's true, too. But the definition of "sportswriter" has changed. These days, any Joe with a blog on his favorite team is a sportswriter. Hell, Rich Eisen wrote a book! What has Rich Eisen done in his career that people would want to read about? ... That's a thread for another day.