Layoffs coming at the OCR...

If your point of reference begins in the '90s, you should realize that the '80s were the golden days of newspapers even more. Big, fat profit margins almost every year. Papers didn't blink if you needed to add a couple of writers, or a couple of editors ... or both.

We were swimming in profits, and it was fun to head into work every day.
Anything was possible, because we had enough people to be flexible every day.

Everything that came later, including in the '90s, was the beginning of the end.

 

80s were the golden days for the papers that survived.

Not so golden for the LA Herald Examiner, Baltimore News-American, Dallas Times-Herald, Knoxville Journal, Chattanooga Times, Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, Miami News, Hollywood (Fla.) Sun-Tattler, Charlotte News, Memphis Press-Scimitar, Louisville Times . . . . and dozens of others.

 

Wow. I guess stuff like data and job losses and shit isn't going to convince you.

Openings. Yeah. One opening for every 200 applicants and it pays half what it paid five years ago.

I get that you're Mr. Contrarian and plus have seen it all (and have a great mortgage!), but you really are being ridiculous here.

 

Hundreds of newspapers folding up shop in the go-go 80s don't seem to convince you of much, either, it seems.

 

That is correct -- because, as Riptide pointed out, a very large portion of those employees were absorbed into the other newspaper. Also at the time, the other newspaper profited greatly because it was the only game in town for advertisers. Those presses were printing dollar bills.

Really if you think the revenue picture, the employment picture or anything else in newspapers these days resembles a previous time, you're just showing your lack of understanding of the landscape.

 

Revenue is the big difference. Classified ads and the government ads/legal notices that had to be published were gigantic money makers that could always be counted on in the past. Those are all but nonexistent today -- they moved online when Craigslist started giving away classifieds for free. Newspaper advertising is way down. Experts have been telling businesses for years now to abandon print advertising for the Internet because it's far more effective and cost-efficient. That revenue is gone and it isn't coming back.

 

Looks like T.J. Simers' final column...

http://www.losangelesregister.com/articles/choc-601125-baby-says.html

 

Print's dead.

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2014/06/register_stumbles_lead_to.php

 

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things, does not belong...
http://www.news-sentinel.com/

On a more serious note, I'm starting to wonder if the entire post-World War II era was an economic aberration.

 

You mean a scenario where the U.S. did not have to emerge from rubble, unlike the rest of the world powers at the time?

 

Not just that. I don't think it's coincidence that wages have declined as union membership has declined (and, of course, prices are going up). Also, the advance of technology (as well as globalization) has led to the elimination of a lot of what used to be well-paying blue-collar jobs. Some jobs -- including those at newspapers -- became obsolete. We don't need typesetters, we don't need composing rooms and a lot of press (and unfortunately, newsroom) jobs are going away because of economies of scale.

 

There's a pretty good story I recall that basically laid out the post World War II in the U.S. time was a blip unlike other in recorded history.

Manufacturing capacity was way up here to provide for the war effort, then that went to the rebuilding efforts in Europe and Asia as any other world power had almost zero capacity to do anything since the bombers had blown up all the factories.

And, back on the sorta topic. Newspapers aren't dead and neither is print. What is dead is the idea of a person moving around the country for a "career" as a reporter that ends after 40 years with a nice retirement.

How many places, right now, have reporting jobs that are strictly reporting with no desk work, editing, assigning or social media obligations?

As a matter of fact does anyone here have a job in journalism that doesn't have social media obligations?