Rupert Murdoch, media mogul, called those who feel the Internet is the death of the newspaper “misguided cynics who are too busy writing their own obituary to be excited by the opportunity.” Funny, well put.
But how far off are those cynics? It’s easy for someone like Murdoch to sit high upon his billions looking down on lowly reporters making less than $30,000 who don’t have the resources or time to come up with a new way to profit from news.
Even CEO’s of newspapers, who have the time, money and resources are failing to come up with ideas—and in the meantime, their employees, those lower on the totem poll suffer! And, now this is just a guess, I’m pretty sure newspaper exec’s are still making a pretty penny.
So if the optimist, Rupert Murdoch, has any ideas, by all means, can we hear them? Because I, for one, do not want to go through another round of layoffs; I fear I will not be as lucky again.
Categories: The End of Professional Journalism?
Tagged: Rupert Murdoch
So apparently the half of my job that has been moved to advertising will remain there and I will not be dragged down with it. I did have some holiday shifts that are still up in the air, but hey, at this point as long as I’m not a hybrid newsroom/advertiser I’m fine with what little kinks need to be worked out to make the transition smoother.
Needless to say I had to work this past weekend and unlike the newsroom, there are absolutely NO people there on the weekends. It was a little eerie, I had to turn on all the lights (took me a while to find them) and I was hearing footsteps and freaking out every now and then.
It wasn’t bad as the first day, during the week when everyone in advertising were around and I had “helpers.” I didn’t have to deal with their incompetence, just my own, which is manageable.
Categories: Surviving the Layoff Massacre
Tagged: journalism, newspaper layoffs, newspaper vs. advertising
