What's wrong with newspapers ... circa 1965

http://jimromenesko.com/2013/12/16/what-was-wrong-with-newspapers-in-1965/

An interesting article from 48 years ago.

 

Yeah, and the '70s and '80s were rough times indeed for those same newspapers. Hardly made any money.

 

Things haven't changed in five decades. I don't know whether it's funny or sad. The one sad thing is the $150 a week pay still isn't that far off!

At my former paper, the letter they sent out each year at Christmas, grudgingly giving the employees a turkey, always talked about how tough times are with advertising, about how much news print cost was rising, blah, blah, blah. It was the same letter year in and year out with only the date different. One old guy who worked there in the 1950s said it was the same song sung by the owners' father back then.

 

Even in good times, that varied greatly in the biz. Early 1980s, I worked at a mid-major that gave us two weeks' pay for the year-end bonus and I talked to a couple larger papers where the average bonus equalled six weeks' pay. But my first major metro in the mid-1980s gave us $25 gift certificates to a grocery store.

 

The shop I was at in the late 80s was making money hand-over-fist and our annual Christmas bonus was a chocolate Santa handed over the counter when we went to pick up our check.

 

We got no Christmas bonus at Tribune during its high-flying days but did get 10-17% of our salaries each year in preferred stock added to our 401(k). Came in handy when Zell overpaid for the stock a few years later.

 

My Christmas bonus this year was a membership into the Jelly of the Month Club.

 

Win.