Wordsmith

I’m being promoted at work, and that’s taken up a lot of my time lately. There are a lot of things going on in the journalism world that I really want to address … however, I’ve been looking for a place to live, preparing for the new gig and trying not to give short shrift to my current position.

It’s a bit difficult, to say the least. So I apologize for the lack of updates. When I get really settled in, the blog should be updated at least daily — and oftentimes more than that.

A quick thank-you to the folks at bloopdiary.com and livejournal.com, who have tripled this site’s traffic in the past couple of days. I appreciate it, guys!

Now, on to business: There’s an interesting article up at Marketwatch that theorizes (again) the death of newspapers. The headline: Are job cuts signaling the end for American Newspapers? Straight from the source:

Daily publications ranging from the San Jose Mercury News in the San Francisco Bay Area to the venerable New York Times have axed reporters and editors — more than 750 — in little more than a month, as competition from the online world has joined forces with financial pressures to put on the squeeze.

It’s been en vogue to scream about the death of newspapers ever since … hell, ever since the first one was published. The 20th century saw the advent of radio, TV and the Internet. Newspapers are still here. They are still relevant.

If newspapers die, it will not be from competing media. Newspapers have fought and adapted time after time to challenges. Some papers — notably small community newspapers — are thriving as they embrace change and continue to stay ahead of the curve. Example: The Statesboro (Ga.) Herald, an 8,000-circulation daily that has benefited from the strong leadership of executive editor Jim Healy. The Herald regularly rebuffs efforts from the nearby Savannah Morning News to encroach its territory. They’ve rebuilt their Web site into a truly interactive presence, and it’s made a difference.

The way they did that wasn’t to cut more staff from a newsroom that was already bare bones. The paper has an online staff to work on its Web presence (most community papers don’t — they have their editorial staff do the Web work, too).

New media won’t kill newspapers. The short-sighted cutting of jobs will. When newsroom positions shrink, there is less local content. That means a thinner paper. Ad staff is then charged with selling ads for an inferior product compared to the one that was produced with a full staff.

In other words: Newspapers won’t be killed by other media, but they are likely slitting their own throats in their rush to protect short-term profit margins.