The paper

I was halfway to work one night in a bona fide blizzard, fishtailing along in my old Civic, when they announced on the radio that roads were officially closed. Any non-essential non-emergency personnel crazy enough to be out driving would be ticketed.

So I called my then-boss -- an old-school newspaperman named Dave Hale -- and asked him if the First Amendment qualified us as essential personnel.

"Sure," Dave said, "you just show 'em your newspaper ID and they'll give you a police escort the rest of the way to the office."

"Really?" I said.

"Hell no," he said. "You'll get a ticket. But they do expect to read about all this tomorrow morning, so get your butt in here. Just be careful -- I hear it's snowing out there."

That's how the job works.

My favorite fictional example of this is from the ending of Resident Evil. As Milla walks through the desolate, zombie-ravaged streets of a now-empty city, we see a fluttering copy of The Racoon City Times with the headline, "The Dead Walk!" The screenwriter, director, set designer and audience all seem to assume that even in that apocalyptic nightmare -- or in case of alien invasion or the imminent arrival of a killer asteroid -- reporters, photographers, editors and truck drivers would all just head to work like they do every other day of the year. Guys like Dave probably would have.

There was no blizzard yesterday and no zombies, asteroids or killer aliens either. But it was not an easy day to get the paper out.

"The News Journal cuts jobs" the headline reads:

The News Journal and delawareonline.com began notifying 31 employees this week that their jobs would be eliminated in a companywide effort by the Gannett Co. to reduce payroll by 10 percent.

In Delaware, a total of 44 jobs are being cut. Thirteen of the eliminated positions were open. Another three employees volunteered to leave.

... Payroll reductions were initiated this week across Gannett Co., the nation's largest newspaper publisher, with a goal of cutting 10 percent by the first quarter of 2009. The reduction was first announced by Gannett in October.

The latest reductions follow a 3 percent cut announced in August. Both cuts are separate from a 5 percent trim from USA Today's newsroom announced Nov. 24.

The move affects most of Gannett's 85 daily newspapers, including USA Today, and nearly 900 nondaily publications. Each paper also operates its own Web site.

The suddenly high-traffic Gannett Blog has been compiling a tally of yesterday's bloodbath. More than 1,000 jobs so far and it may not be over yet.

But somehow that article quoted above got written yesterday and then it got laid out on the page and edited for accuracy, grammar and style. And it was printed, distributed and posted to the Web. That's how the job works.

I watched the other survivors of Bloody Tuesday performing all those tasks last night in a newsroom dotted with newly empty chairs where people who were good at their jobs used to sit. Wherever I looked I saw someone exhibiting one of Kubler-Ross' stages of grief. Actually, strike that -- I didn't really see any bargaining or denial. And not much acceptance either. But plenty of depression and a good bit of anger. It struck me that if something like this had happend at the girls' school, they'd have counselors available and some kind of special assembly or something. (The paper did have a staff meeting set for this afternoon. The one advantage to my graveyard shift is that I haven't been to a staff meeting in five years. I appreciate the necessity for such a meeting, but it strikes me as kind of like this -- right idea, awkward messenger.)

I appreciate that newspapers as they currently exist will have to adapt and evolve. Unfortunately, I have little confidence that the people and entities that own most of them now are capable of engineering, or even of allowing, newspapers to evolve the way they must. Cutting payroll in order to maintain the highest expectations of profitability is stupendously irrelevant to the real challenges facing newspapers in the 21st century. It's a misguided attempt to address an unrelated problem and it only serves to make the larger problem worse.

The public needs, as Dave Hale said, "to read about all this tomorrow morning." In the 21st century, the public may not be able to wait until tomorrow morning, and they may prefer to read it all in some format other than ink on newsprint, but the general principle still holds. Whether or not they officially count as such during a snowstorm, newspapers are essential and newspaper people are essential personnel.

In an act of executive malpractice yesterday, more than 1,000 essential personnel were laid off. The public, and the republic, is worse off because of it.

Anyway, if you're the praying sort, please remember these folks in your prayers. (Here's a list of those I'll be praying for, by name.) And if you're the letter-writing sort, please consider a letter to the (remaining) editors. And if you're the voting and e-mailing your representative sort, please consider doing that too. If the founders were correct in their estimation of the importance of a free press -- enshrining it prominently in Amendment No. 1 -- then it might be appropriate for some congressional committee to hold hearings to enquire whether the people and entities currently running this nation's newspapers into the ground are undermining this vital component of our free society.

Comments

[Jen]

I lasted through four rounds of layoffs at two newspapers. Each one hurt, but by the last one, I wasn't shocked anymore. Thank God I left on my own power and now work a good 8-5 PR job where I don't have to drive in blizzards for my job. I hated that part of being a reporter -- knowing I could get in a bad accident while out on assignment in a snowstorm, but the paper would never pay for it.

[Jon]

My condolences to everyone affected. Layoffs are never fun.
I survived about a half a dozen rounds of layoffs at AOL before my - and 1,999 others' - number came up last year.
Oddly enough, when I went to a job fair for ex-AOLers shortly after being let go one of the booths I actually sought out was the Gannett booth.
It made sense; I'd worked for a newspaper before, and I had a range of skills and expereince - writing/editing, desktop publishing, IT experience - that could be applicable to various facets of newspaper production. Also, the recruiter was extemely cute. I was never contacted, though, which is probably just as well, all things considered.
The day of the layoff at AOL was rather surreal. Those of us being cut had gotten an e-mail the night before saying that we had to come in to HQ for a "mandatory meeting." We all knew what it was about, of course. After getting our walking papers many of us wandered around the campus, saying our regretfull goodbyes, while several reporters roamed from person to person looking for quotes and newscopters buzzed by overhead.

[cjmr's husband]

I'll never forget the layoffs at my previous company. They laid off tech support. Brilliant move. The head of tech support, being the CEO's buddy, was permitted to resign the day before. Coward. My boss had to do all of the actual firing.

Still: ZOMBIE THREAD!!!

[Otto von Bisquick]

That "The Dead Walk!" newspaper in RE is almost certainly a reference to the newspaper shown in the opening of Romero's Day of the Dead. See 4:20-4:30 in this clip.

[Amaryllis]

This stinks. This really stinks.

(and how's that for insightful analysis and elegant expression?)

I want my newspapers back. More than ever in times like these. And, if it's not too much to ask, I want them back with actual editors, reporters, copy editors, proofreaders and researchers.

newspapers are essential and newspaper people are esssential personnel.
That's gonna be my new war cry. With every last S.

[Pope Easier Rhino I]

I don't want to read magazines, newspapers, or books online. And given the current trend, where all publications will simply be a slip of paper saying, "You can read this publication at such-and-such.com," I guess either I'll have to invest in a printer that gets more than a few pages per ink cartridge, or just give up reading.

That being said, I think people overplay the importance of a lot of "instant" news. Sure, a newspaper can't announce school closings in print, and they can't provide up-to-the-minute coverage, but not everything needs to be up-to-the-minute. By the same token, not everything needs to be reportage on trends and other things which are somewhat deadline-agnostic. Television and the internet have up-to-the-minute locked down, but newspapers are where one should go to get Watergate, for instance. Not exactly something which was "report this before 9 tomorrow or it's old news," but by the same token, not "America Is All Agog Over Eggnog!" either.

Oh, and one last thing: if the founders thought the press was so great, why the heck didn't they put it in the actual Constitution. For that matter, the entire Bill of Rights. It's always worried me just slightly when I think of the Bill of Rights being additions. I know, there are reasons, but still.

[clay]

That's the first time that the word 'favorite' and the movie Resident Evil have been referenced in the same sentence, ever.

Zombies in a haunted house, how can you mess that up?

[whoissecretdubai]

Hello,

A humble request...

Do you, by any chance, happen to know who Secret Dubai (the blogger: secretdubai.blogspot.com) is?

http://whoissecretdubai.blogspot.com/

'...whether the people and entities currently running this nation's newspapers into the ground are undermining this vital component of our free society.'

It is not a failure on the part of those people and entities, it is a plan.

[Spalanzani]

My favorite fictional example of this is from the ending of Resident Evil. As Milla walks through the desolate, zombie-ravaged streets of a now-empty city, we see a fluttering copy of The Racoon City Times with the headline, "The Dead Walk!"

There's something similiar in the first Hellboy movie, if I remember right: a scene showing what will happen if the villians' plan to release some evil Lovecraftian entities succeeds. It shows a post-apocalyptic city, and a paper drifts by with the headline "WORLD ENDS" and a photo of a mushroom cloud.

[Reynard]

I appreciate that newspapers as they currently exist will have to adapt and evolve. Unfortunately, I have little confidence that the people and entities that own most of them now are capable of engineering, or even of allowing, newspapers to evolve the way they must. Cutting payroll in order to maintain the highest expectations of profitability is stupendously irrelevant to the real challenges facing newspapers in the 21st century. It's a misguided attempt to address an unrelated problem and it only serves to make the larger problem worse.

Now replace "newspapers" with "Auto makers" or "the Auto Industry" where appropriate, and you'll see why I'm not terribly confident that they'll survive past New Year's Day. As has been pointed out time and again by wiser people than me: If you throw people out of work, they can't earn money. If they can't earn money, they can't afford to buy stuff. If no one can afford to buy stuff, businesses can't make enough money to afford to pay their employees. (And yet, somehow, they can *ALWAYS* afford to give the CEO and the other Suits their Golden Parachutes!) And when they can't afford to pay their employees...

[Naked Bunny with a Whip]

why the heck didn't they put it in the actual Constitution

The main body of the Constitution is primarily a description of how the government is supposed to operate. It's pretty mechanical stuff. It was probably quicker to tack on a bunch of amendments right away to cover the more "we've described how to government should operate, now let's describe how the government should behave" portion. There was some time pressure, keep in mind.

[Kit Whitfield]

Here's hoping everyone laid off gets as soft a landing as possible...

[Amaryllis]

Reynard: If you throw people out of work, they can't earn money. If they can't earn money, they can't afford to buy stuff. If no one can afford to buy stuff, businesses can't make enough money to afford to pay their employees.
Jay Hancock makes this point in a column a few weeks ago: in these times especially,why should employers be exempt from the need to consider the common good?

If the country is to avoid the worst downturn in 70 years, butchers, bakers and other employers need to question their instinct to fire people as a response to weak business conditions. Your employee is somebody else's customer, breadwinner and mortgage payer. ...For some reason, we never exhort retailers, manufacturers, law firms, hospitals and other employers to do a little extra with payrolls to push the economy over a bump...There's always some stimulus for consumers and the command to shop heavily. Washington is beating on financiers to lend to somebody - anybody! - even though heedless lending got us into this mess. Warren Buffett and other tycoons are urging people to buy stocks. But those with the power to create and destroy jobs seem to get a pass. It's time to bring employers into the national self-help group.

And of all employers, certainly newspapers ought to be near the top of the list. I held forth at length in a recent thread about my preference for ink-on-paper, locally-based and locally-responsible newspapers, so I'll just say now that they fill a niche whose emptiness is not compensated for by either the up-to-the-minute online national news sites, or the three-years-later book.

[Vermic]

I'm an extremely bad person, because the minute I saw a post labeled "The Paper" all I could think about was Strong Bad emails.

[Cowboy Diva]

The Bill of Rights has been part of the US Constitution since ratification; it was essentially the compromise the Federalists had to agree to so it could be ratified. In effect, those 10 "amendments" have been part of the Constitution since it became law.

[Jeff]

1) This sucks.

2) Did you get a ticket, or did you manage to avoid the cops until you got to your job? And what of the trip home? Don't leave us dangling, Fred!

[rizzo]

Thank god I work for a privately owned newspaper that's(purposely) the loss leader for a multimedia conglomo and will be in no danger of losing my job anytime soon.

Best of luck to you and your coworkers, Fred, the newspaper business ain't easy.

[Pope Easier Rhino I]

[quote]I know there are reasons, but still...[/quote]

Merely making an observation that the Bill of Rights seems to be one of the more important parts of Constitutional law, as far as the everyday person in the street is concerned, and no matter what the Federalists thought or whether those Amendments have been part of law for as long as the rest of the big C, they're still additions. They're still in the same class as all the other Amendments. In a way, it reminds me quite a lot of the situation with the Declaration of Independence, a document that has no legal basis at all, yet is quoted far more often than the Constitution itself. Sure, "all men are created equal" is a nice thought, but it's no more a law than the Federalist Papers are.

[Markk]

"no matter what the Federalists thought or whether those Amendments have been part of law for as long as the rest of the big C, they're still additions. They're still in the same class as all the other Amendments."

Uhm?? Huh?

Amendments are exactly the same legally as any other part of the constitution. That is why they are called "amendments". They =change= the constitution. There is NO difference between them and what was the base. That is why they could just put them in. They had a starting document then made revisions.

[lou]

I'm an ex-reporter and I travel the country for my job. It's sad how inconsequential local papers have become. I see a lot of recycled, truncated New York Times and Washington Post stories in the A-sections I read in the original papers days before. Then maybe five to seven local stories in their metro/local sections. The stories are filled with typos because the copy desk has also been bled.

No wonder people find the newspaper inconsequential. A cousin who lives in Portland, Oregon stopped subscribing to the Oregonian years ago. She had been a big news buff. I asked why. "Too much fluff, not enough hard news," she shrugged. And the Oregonian is probably one of the better local products.

[CombatQueer]

I remember when my small town newspaper was bought by the a larger company attempting a roll-up of many small newspapers. What was worst was how the opinion pages because entirely toothless. It didn't matter what issue was being discussed, it always sounded like "Chewing Gum Ban In Our Schools: Yes or No?"

[Amy Pemberton]

I agree with Amaryllis--I think one of the keys of getting this mess under control will have to do with addressing the massive amounts of "non-cause firing"--ie firing having to do with something other than the employee's performance or a bona fide, reasonably permanent loss of work. Aka "downsizing", "structural readjustment", "insert your favorite weasel-word here". Certainly some legal protections for workers are needed, but I think more importantly there needs to be a change in ethical understanding. To put it bluntly, this is disgusting behavior and more people need to say so, rather than simply writing off as "business". As a spiritual ancestor of mine once wrote:

"But you were always a good man of business,
Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this
to himself.

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands
again. "Mankind was my business. The common
welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance,
and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings
of my trade were but a drop of water in the
comprehensive ocean of my business!"

A hundred and sixty plus years on, you'd think that we'd know a little more than old Scrooge and Marley. Oh well, Merry Christmas. I will especially be keeping the employees of Republic Window in Chicago on my prayer list. May they recieve justice and may their beacon light shine into the coming year.