Tampa Tribune to cut 70 jobs

There's no way this is going to come out right, but I'm thinking that if you're handing out newspapers or working a press room, you didn't have too many options when it came to getting a job.

 

(This is also likely to come out wrong, but here goes...)

I've always thought so too. Of course, I've never understood why anyone would work as a newspaper carrier or inserter when you could work at a restaurant or in data entry and (presumably) make better money.

 

Exactly.

 

From circulation directors I've spoken with (and this is going to come out wrong too) there were two types of people who took jobs as carriers -- those that really love the job and those that can't get another job. he told me "we really only screen for violent felonies." Of course the guy was a complete scumbag, but from the carriers and inserters I met, he was probably right for a lot of them.

 

The pressmen are highly skilled labor. Rochester Institute of Technology is the top school for press technology. I would think the graduates of RIT probably had to work harder than most liberal arts or j-school grads.

 

Absolutely right. That's why I didn't include pressmen in my original post. Pressmen are in the same boat reporters and deskers are, only more: Skilled, specialized labor.

 

My first year in the business I also delivered the paper. I needed the extra money. One year. 365 days (well, nights, really).

I know this: A newspaper is only as good as its weakest link. If you can't get the product in the hands of the customer, it doesn't matter how good the column is. I learned a lot of respect for carriers, even if some of them do live in the margins of society.

 

I wonder how much of the circulation decline can be attributed to bad carriers. 10 percent? 20 percent?

I don't get the NY Times any more because their carriers and billing department were completely incompetent for three months. My parents dumped their Star Ledger subscription after 10 years of daily delivery because they got fed up with awful delivery.

 

Having to find a new job is never easy, but pressmen, as specialized as their work is, have more options than reporters and deskers do. Presswork at a newspaper is the tip of the iceberg for skilled pressmen given all the commercial printing (outside of newspaper pressrooms) that's done in this country.

 

I have a friend -- a former newspaper carrier -- who says increasingly early delivery (and with it the end of the morning school-aged delivery kid) is a big reason for the decline of newspapers.

The argument is it made newspaper delivery an adult job...and as an adult job, it tends to attract people who (in J_D's perhaps overly kind phrase) "live in the margins of society."

So rather than highly motivated -- and cheap -- kids, we're forced to use unmotivated and (diplomatically speaking) inconsistent adults, who also happen to cost more. Bad all around.

(Not necessarily sure I agree, but it's an interesting take.)