PressEthic

Last week I included a post that reflected on the decrease in newspaper readership what with the rise in online media sources and the increased popularity of TV journalism. Low and behold in this article that appeared in The Boston Globe link text on September 20, my fears have been confirmed. Newspapers all over the country find that they are having to lay off sometimes hundreds of their employees. The Times is said to lose 200, while two Philadelphia papers are laying off about 100, and even the Boston Globe intends to cut about 160 workers, mainly managers and union employees. The story cites that the layoffs come ,”as the newspaper industry faces serious problems including slow advertising growth, long-term declines in circulation and a widespread shift by readers -- especially younger ones -- to online news sources.” So about a year from now, as I set out to apply to my first job as a reporter, I can only hope that their will be any jobs left to fill. Newspapers are becoming like old forgotten men, war torn veterans of the stressful daily news beat, but left out in the cold by their public. They have been passed over for the flashy and immediate world of online news or for the heartfelt Anderson Cooper’s, whose emo-reporting can be felt a lot easier through the TV than through the newsprint of its competing dailies. Will newspapers ever really die is hard to say, but it sure looks like the job opportunities are few and far between.