Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville to publish three days a week

The Birmingham News, if the list is correct, lost four photographers and its photo editor. Who's going to take pictures?

 

Readers. Get ready for a bunch of backyard wildlife stand-alones, and youth sports team shots. Ugh.

But don't worry ... despite gutting their newsrooms, these newspapers will be beefing up the 24/7 web sites with loads of in-depth, quality reporting. What a load of bullshit.

Bad, bad day for journalism, and obviously for those who were fired. I hope they can somehow land on their feet in a better line of work.

 

Reporters. Just like one place I worked. It was, um, interesting some days.

 

Bernard Troncale might be the best newspaper photographer in Alabama. Hal Yeager is one of the best sports photographers around.
And Jeff Roberts took this photo after the tornado in APril 2011 that should have won a Pulitzer.

 

That's an awesome photo.

 

Per his Twitter account, UAB writer Steve Irvine is out.

 

Among the casualties, two pregnant women and a cancer patient.

http://mediaofbirmingham.com/2012/06/12/birmingham-news-fires-more-than-100-employees/

 

I just know this: I don't work for Newhouse. I don't work in Alabama or Louisiana. Heck, I've never been anywhere close to those states before.

I just know that days like this remind me how futile it is to envision a future in journalism. I enjoy what I do. I like to think I'm good at it. And it feels like literally nobody cares sometimes. Not the suits. Not the readers. Not the advertisers. Nobody.

Almost everyone I worked with at my college newspaper has been laid off either once or twice. Almost all have either latched on to Internet jobs or positions outside the industry. It's just so, so sad. This isn't at all what we envisioned our future profession being 10-15 years ago, and we were too naive back then to realize what was happening to the industry.

 

I am nearly physically ill knowing some of the good people and talented professionals who were terminated today.

 

Jack Daniel's makes the pain go away. Not being flip; just mellow.

 

That's true. But a LOT of industries were living in Fantasy World in the late 90s. I'm sure anyone who worked at a paper that folded in the 80s didn't share that optimism, no matter how good things seemed.

 

That's just plain disgusting. This thread gets worse with each posting.