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 Though Murry has been retired since 1999, he still has nightmares about being fired. |
Firings are now so common
that there's no stigma to it
of TheColumnists.com
I have been having these terrible dreams of late about getting fired. I wake up in a sweat and distressed. Why, I wonder, am I reliving such terrible memories so long after the end of my working days.
It takes me a while to ponder the matter and realize that I am not reliving anything. I retired from my newspaper job in a jocular mood. I was certainly not fired. The newspaper threw me a party and then printed a collection of my columns.
So what is this firing dream all about? Why do I feel so bad when I dream it?
I think it is the time we are living through when so many of my friends in the newspaper business have indeed been fired. It is no longer a sign of disgrace. Everybody’s doing it. Luckily, I was long gone by the time this nightmarish era began.
But still there are ramifications for me, sort of a vicarious experience that stuns me when I consider it. It is hard to accept a time when editors and publishers have taken upon themselves to fire half the staff. At my final newspaper, The San Jose Mercury News, all manner of employees have been canned despite the fact that the paper is not going broke, not even losing money. In fact, the theory has been that by de-staffing (is there such a word?), the profits have been enhanced.
If that is the case, what do the writers and editors provide? Why in the world were they hired? What is this business all about?
Well, of course, newspapers have not been alone in this recessionary era in firing employees. The banks fired lots of people, but then the U.S. taxpapers (some of them newspaper employees) have anteed up billions to bail out the businesses. Banks, we are told, are necessary. Auto manufacturers have been bailed out, even though they are years away from making a profit. Are auto companies necessary too, even when foreign companies are around to provide the cars Americans want?
So there is this dichotomy, where newspapers which lose money fold or merge and the employees are canned. But other newspapers which do not lose money just can the employees to protect their profits.
Bailout? No one has suggested doing that because apparently newpapers are not necessary. After all, this is the age of the Internet and all the news is there. But how did it get there? Much of the news on the net is provided by newspapers. Some newspapers now provide their news only on the net with, of course, far fewer writers. If the public is not protesting the cutback in product, that may be because the news on the Internet is free.
Well, maybe the newspaper business itself is getting fired and while it may rock the dreams of journalists (a fancy word I think that only non-newspaper people used), no one is making the case that “read all about it” was anything more than a come-on.
For a long time I covered movies and wrote
reviews. Now, many newspapers (including the Merc News) have
no film critics. They run reviews from other papers, news from
wire services. Chain newspaper like the Merc News know they must
have employees to edit the news they buy from other sources,
but they have learned that a central editing desk can edit all
the papers in the chain, cutting way back on the staffing requirements
the way that other business parcel out lots of functions to Mumbai.
The Merc does not even need a cafeteria anymore, I hear. The
staff that remains can bring a bag from home or eat out or get
a bag of potato chips from a coin machine.
I am getting distressed reporting this. And this report, like an infinite number of other reports, appears on a blog. Although blogs are usually opinion and not news, they have contributed mightily to filling the hole that newspapers have abandoned.
I am not suggesting that newspapers should be bailed out. The number of employees in the business who have lost their jobs is large, but not the economic dislocation equal to the potential number of automobile employees who would be on the street if the auto companies had not been bailed out.
I do not know how all this has affected journalism students planning their careers, though, ironically, the former managing editor of the Merc News is now heading up a journalism department at a university.
I would imagine that other vocations have gone through this though I hear that the makers of horseshoes are in great demand now that the employees in that craft cleared out.
Well, this indeed is a nightmarish time. I can’t imagine how many nightmares are produced each night by former and current workers who are a bit too old to start over. I find that many of my old colleagues don’t really talk about it much. It is difficult to fathom that a profession in which you invested your life has lost its purpose. And if you invested some of your salary in the stock of your employer, you also lost there, too.
No doubt things will get better, though I cannot see a rosy future for newspapers. I think if I could start over, I might try a banking career. Thousands in that field have been receiving million-dollar bonuses during these bad days. I can’t imagine how much they will get when the good days return, though I should warn that taxpayers are getting strapped and may no be able to supply the multi-billion dollar bailouts forever.
©2009 by Murry Frymer. The Murry Frymer caricature is ©2000 by Jim Hummel. The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Aug. 10, 2009.
TO ACCESS MURRY FRYMER'S ARCHIVE OF COLUMNS ON THIS SITE, CLICK HERE: FRYMER ARCHIVE
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