PressEthic

Everyone heard the news?

Dean Baquet, the editor of the Los Angeles Times just quit. Well, he didn't just quit, but was forced to quit, both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times reported today.

Baquet has been fighting with the Tribune company, which owns the LA Times and 10 other papers across the nation, since September primarily because he was opposed to the size of the newsroom downsizing the executives at the paper had in mind, according to the papers.

Baquet also delievered a speech in New Orleans last month, encouraging editors and reporters at other media outlets to fight back against newsroom downsizing.

Anyone surprised that speech made David Hiller, the publisher of the LA Times, very angry? The Los Angeles Times quoted Hiller today as saying, "After considerable discussion, we concluded that we have significant differences on future direction, and so Dean will be leaving." Two words missing. I guess he actually meant, "Dean will HAVE TO be leaving."

Now, I have to say it won't be the last story of its kind.

I just read the 2007 annual industry report released by the International Newspaper Marketing Association (INMA). It's grim. You don't wanna read it.

I did, and now I''m quite sure I'll be unemployed when I hit 45. The report quoted Warren Buffet as saying, "If anything, the decline is accelerating."

The thing is that, I'm emotionally attached to the smell and feel of newspapers. I guess a lot of you are, too.

My father was a j school professor. He majored in journalism history and had piles of dusty old newspapers in his study. That was the hook for me. The old-fashioned notion of newspaper reporters as heavy-smoking, hard-working, dirty-mouthed, big-hearted, hard-boiled comrades--- that helped, too.

I still don't want to believe it, but am starting to really really think its' going to happen -- the end of the newspaper as we know it.