Yesterday, our publishers announced that our newspaper would be discontinued in January.
In this sad time of declining subscriptions and inclining cases of ADD, another print newspaper bites the dust.
Subscriptions are dropping faster than Locklear's boobs, advertising revenues are falling off the charts (in the uh oh direction) and all of it is happening faster than any of us thought possible.
And it is happening countrywide.
Four years ago, I was sitting in a journalism college course, with the professor forecasting the inevitable death of newspapers. "Newspapers are dying!" he said.
I was thinking, no freaking way. I'm spending 60 thousand on a journalism education and there damn well better be a job market when I graduate. I've got at least a few years of good journalism career progress in me before it all goes under.
But I was I wrong.
In a world of palm pilots, online-ready cell phones, laptops and ever-connected touch iPods, a clunky broadsheet newspaper doesn't stand a chance.
But it's going to be all right.
Because as members of the media-- reporters, editors, freelancers, designers, advertising sellers -- we will be making the changes as the old print model is abandoned in favor of an online, diversified model for news production and dissemination.
And we will leading the change, and although that seems scary, with layoffs and cutbacks on the forefront of everyone's mind, job opportunities in positions we never even considered will be available and ready for the taking.
This is a unique time in history. The Fourth Estate's primary pillar, print journalism, is crumbling. But in its place, a new pillar will be erected, that of the World Wide Web. And here is where our generation makes its mark.
In this sad time of declining subscriptions and inclining cases of ADD, another print newspaper bites the dust.
Subscriptions are dropping faster than Locklear's boobs, advertising revenues are falling off the charts (in the uh oh direction) and all of it is happening faster than any of us thought possible.
And it is happening countrywide.
Four years ago, I was sitting in a journalism college course, with the professor forecasting the inevitable death of newspapers. "Newspapers are dying!" he said.
I was thinking, no freaking way. I'm spending 60 thousand on a journalism education and there damn well better be a job market when I graduate. I've got at least a few years of good journalism career progress in me before it all goes under.
But I was I wrong.
In a world of palm pilots, online-ready cell phones, laptops and ever-connected touch iPods, a clunky broadsheet newspaper doesn't stand a chance.
But it's going to be all right.
Because as members of the media-- reporters, editors, freelancers, designers, advertising sellers -- we will be making the changes as the old print model is abandoned in favor of an online, diversified model for news production and dissemination.
And we will leading the change, and although that seems scary, with layoffs and cutbacks on the forefront of everyone's mind, job opportunities in positions we never even considered will be available and ready for the taking.
This is a unique time in history. The Fourth Estate's primary pillar, print journalism, is crumbling. But in its place, a new pillar will be erected, that of the World Wide Web. And here is where our generation makes its mark.