As a former journalist, I have many, many friends in the news media. As the newspaper business continues to struggle and restrict under the onslaught of the world wide web, so many wonderful journalists are losing their jobs. Is this end of an era? It feels like it. I have to remind myself that endings, painful as they always are, are necessary to make way for new beginnings. But I also believe in taking time to honor where we've been and reflect.
Here's how an Indianapolis Star newspaperman describes his most recent ending.
I walked in the door home a few minutes ago, kissed my wife, and since I don't know what else to do but be a journalist, I'll report:
The bosses at the Indy Star are handling it fairly well, compared to some other shops. No bum's rush out the door or anything. Handshakes, pleasantries, all that. Take your time gathering your things.
The first few minutes after you get back from HR on the 6th floor are interesting. Everyone can see the gray folder in your hand, and some people start avoiding eye contact. Most, though, soon approach and offer their condolences. Not a few hugs are exchanged. Our theater and classical music writer, an absolute workhorse who gave me a very classy goodbye, soon got the call himself. He had to take a minute and down some caffeine before going up.
My last act as an employee was to call an author I’d scheduled an interview with next week to cancel. I’d been pursuing that source for the better part of a year, dropping off materials for her to read and calling every few weeks to convince her to sit down. My persistence paid off and I was finally going to nail the interview, but now it’ll never happen. She reminded me not to forget to return the two books she’d loaned me to read.
Like most people in the Star newsroom, I’d preemptively packed up a bunch of stuff. All I really had left was a bunch of clip files and archives of the entertainment section, of which I was the editor for nearly two years.
'I am not ready'
Newspapers are surprisingly heavy, especially when you’re carrying them to your car on your last walk out of the building. It’s funny; we think of newspapers as being so insubstantial, so temporary in their usefulness, soon to be discarded for the next batch. It’s only when you gather them up together that their corporeal heft is plain. I look at what I wrote over the past year, and it’s at least two novels worth of words.
A writer? I never considered myself as such. I am a newspaperman. Well, I was. I don’t know what I am now. In this market, I know what my chances are of landing another newspaper gig. I have to face that this is probably the end of my journalism career -- it goes without saying that I am not ready.
But there are hundreds of us today, thousands. My story is not special. But I still wanted to tell it, because that’s what I do. Did.
