As you no doubt heard earlier this week, the print version of the Seattle P-I, one of my city’s two daily papers, is no more. (The 20+ staffers who kept their jobs have embarked on a big fat newspaper 2.0 online experiment, complete with reader blogs, canned content from magazines owned by Hearst — the P-I’s parent company, and links to competing news outlets.)
As devastating as the folding of the print P-I is to those of us who learned to write a lede on a typewriter, the noose has been around the neck of newspapers for some time now. Freelance budgets have dwindled, pay rates have shrunk, and paid contributor opportunities are nearly extinct.
Writers, photographers, and illustrators have had fair warning about this monumental shift in the freelance market. That’s not to say some of us haven’t cried our eyes out about it, but we’ve had fair warning. Those of us who value eating have adapted, branching into online markets, magazine work, trade publications, corporate work, consulting, editing, et cetera. You know, diversify or starve.
Although I got my 9-to-5 start in newspapers, I’ve never been more than a sporadic contributor since going freelance in 1992. In the intervening years, I’ve hopped from freelancing for the book publishing biz to dotcoms and the corporate tech sector, back to magazines and newspapers and books, and lately, over to web news media — though to stay afloat, I still do some of each.
As long as newspapers, magazines, and books are around, I plan to have a hand in them. But I find myself working online so much these days that I have moments of thinking, Six months is a long fracking time to wait to see that article I just wrote in print and on newsstands.
This horrifies me somewhat, because like so many, I grew up wanting to work in print publishing. I still want to work in print publishing. (As an aside, it’s my firm believe that most people do. I mean, when was the last time you met a person who didn’t tell they wanted to write a book? When every last one of us is reading a Kindle or whatever the next space tablet is, wannabe writers and life coaches will still be saying they hope to see their name in print someday.)
Aspirations aside, I also want to pay my bills. So I do some of each medium: print, online, old school, new school. Given the past six months of media layoffs, the recent avalanche of newspaper closures, and all the news reports, blog posts, insider gossip, tweets, and panels about the colossal shift in the news/information biz, I’d be crazy not to.
Regardless of whether you work in the news/information biz, I imagine most of you have done the same since the economy went seriously south last fall: print designers teaching themselves WordPress, desktop programmers developing mobile phone apps, anything to give yourself an edge.
If so, what shifts has your work seen in the past six months? Have you felt the need to pick up a new tech skill or two? Started working in a medium that’s a first for you? Infiltrated an industry that’s brand spanking new to you? Please share with the class.
March 19th, 2009
Another call for sources for my ABC News column: I’m hoping to write this week’s piece on employees who get laid off by a company only to wind up freelancing, contracting, temping, or working for them part-time later. If you’ve been laid off from a staff job in the last six months and have since started freelancing or contracting for that same company, I’d love to hear from you. You can be anonymous and I don’t need the company name. Besides sharing people’s anecdotes in the article, I’m looking to give tips, do’s, and don’ts of taking an ex-employer back as a freelancer or contractor. Please email me by Tuesday if you’re interested. Thank you!
March 13th, 2009
Last week I asked if anyone wanted to weigh in on my ABC News column on how layoff gossip both helps and hurts office workers. (You can read the column here; it ran yesterday.)
But employees aren’t the only ones who grapple with layoff gossip. As a freelancer and contractor, I’ve recently had to temper my monitoring of the downsizing rumor mill about several of my clients. On the one hand, you want to stay informed of budget and headcount cuts so you can plan accordingly (save your pennies, find new clients, be sensitive to editors enduring employment upheaval). On the other, you don’t want to fall so far down the rumor rabbit hole that you can’t think straight.
In other words, you don’t want to be like the freelance journalist I interviewed for my column who said this:
“I get obsessed with the gossip to the point that I become unproductive. Instead of pursuing the work I have, I’m chasing down the latest choice tidbit on whether this other business is going to close. I’m on the phone with colleagues, I’m reading all the blogs, tuning in to the TV, to Twitter, you name it. It’s probably all a waste of time, but hope springs eternal and all that.”
I can relate to this. As a reporter, I love a juicy story too, especially when it affects my own life and livelihood. I’ve certainly lost a couple afternoons in recent weeks tracking the latest newspaper body count. But I’m trying to remember that if I don’t do the work that’s already on my plate I could be next in line to get the boot.
How about you? How do you deal with the layoff rumors swirling around your star clients?
March 13th, 2009
I’m looking for full-time, part-time, temporary, or contract employees who can talk about the below. Anonymous is fine, and I won’t mention your company name (legally, I couldn’t). If interested, email me here. The deadline is Tuesday, so I’d need to hear from you by Monday night. Thanks so much.
How are you dealing with rumblings around the office about impending or potential layoffs at your company? Glad to know (information is power!)? Rather not know (too stressful/depressing!)? Wish your boss hadn’t told you that that nice dad down the hall was on the layoff list? Taking bets with your coworkers about which dead-weight manager will get canned next? Know someone who’s started an anonymous blog about layoffs at the company? If you have a tale to share about how people are dealing with layoff gossip at your job, I’d love to hear from you. I’m also happy to talk to anyone who’s been laid off in the past six months who’s dealt with this.
March 6th, 2009
