Plans for the "Hiatus"?

My local weekly is on social media asking for subs or it'll go under. It's an affluent town with lots of restaurants and a hot real estate market close to NYC. It has five employees and weathered the recession.

 

Here's an answer: Work less hours and take the time to enjoy life a bit.

Call me lazy, but I don't plan to spend this time working insane hours and trying to cram as much copy as I can into each section. If you haven't noticed, nobody buys and hardly anyone reads the section when it's loaded with great local stuff.

One or two local things per day, wire up the rest, then spend my day doing things that are actually meaningful are aren't work-related. That's what I'm doing.

 

Oh, and if I lose my job, so be it.

Life is too short to worry obsessively about things you can't control.

You can't control the rapid decline of newspapers when things are good. You surely can't do it when the world is in a full-blown pandemic.

 

Roller-coaster riding?

No, that's not a sport. Nope, never.

 

Hall of Fame post.

Absolutely spot on.

 

What he said, x1,000.

 

In the late 2000s (around 2007-2009), I remember reading somewhere that the last printed newspaper would hit a doorstep around 2030 or so and thinking to myself that 1. It's a long time away; and 2. That last newspaper in 2030 would be a depressing vestige of the past.

Now, it's 2020, and that last newspaper is due to hit the doorstep in roughly 10 years or so. Be prepared for a lot of even-more depressing shit in this decade, and you shouldn't be surprised in the least.

 

I just want to last until September 2023 when I can check out for good.

 

I like your attitude. This business will not reward people for good work or hard work anymore. It's run by CEOs who give the orders to lay off people and you get laid off according to seniority and salary. Case closed. Nothing you can do to save your job so work for yourself and not the phonies. It's not been about job performance during the layoffs the past many years. Just ask all the superstar writers who got axed. I do applaud your attitude.Enjoy!

 

I understand the sentiment behind this post, but can't agree, or like, or whatever, with regard to it.

Because writing and reporting about this subject should not be done in order to "show my boss I deserve to keep my job" or to make a case to keep newspapers afloat, although both of those things would be nice.

The work -- the best work we can do -- should be done because it is needed. It is, simply put, the right thing to do, in order to best keep people informed, updated and aware. There are a lot of things being done right now, and other things that should be done, for that reason alone. Because it's the right thing, and desperately needed.

Ours, or our industry's, needs/desires don't really matter.

Can you imagine if doctors and health-care workers just, essentially, gave up in this situation, because, say, they don't have enough facemasks, or ventilators? It would be unforgivable, and not tolerated (I hope).

 

I don't think Cake is saying journalism isn't important, or needed.

He's saying the business side of it is in shambles, and no amount of hard work or showing your importance to the boss can change the economics of it.

We all hope that providing honest, important, straightforward information about what's happening in society will continue in some form. We NEED that information more than ever.

 

Can you imagine health care workers putting up with the wages and worker harder boxer bullshit we’ve put up with for the last 20 years? What a terrible comp.