Audio By Carbonatix
The decline and imminent death of daily newspapers is always on my mind, for reasons that should be understandable since I spent the first 25 years of my working life at them. But last week was especially devastating.
Sam Zell, the white knight of Tribune Company, announced a very un-white-knightly cutback of 500 jobs, with this follow-up appearing today. The New York Times announced 100 positions to be whacked from its newsroom — huge! The Minneapolis Star Tribune announced 58 firings and a general wage freeze for those employees unfortunate enough not to belong to a union.
I have been pondering, heart-aching and thinking about all of this for the last couple years, but mainly I have been writing about it — that’s sort of how I think and feel. It would be unfair of me to try to unload all of my maundering on Unfair Park, since I doubt the death of daily newspapers is a hot topic for non-newspaper people. If it were, they wouldn’t be dead. And anyway, Wilonsky wouldn’t publish them.
So…
So I have launched my own blog, called Death of Dailies, which I hope some of you — those who do have an interest — will take a look at. I especially hope other newspaper types will visit.
There are also links to some autobiographical stuff — I know, huge mistake ––just in case you want to get to know me better … or, alternatively, get something you can use against me. It’s all there.
See you in the funny papers. What’s left of ’em, anyway. –Jim Schutze
