[Leica] OT: Newspaper Layoffs

[gcr910 at hotmail.com (Greg Rubenstein)]

Speaking as a former newspaperman, photographer and reporter, this ain't 
surprising.

-- First: cost. Newspapers have always been businesses, not publicly 
subsidized utilities. Staff members often don't think that way. I was as 
guilty as any early in my career. Newspapering is not a good business these 
days. The business model and management have failed to adapt to changes in 
technology and society.

-- Two: Quality. From Photoshopped photographs fobbed off as real to 
falsified articles and the ubiquity of "unnamed sources, sources close to, 
and unidentified sources," most newspapers, and other media, have pretty 
much given up their credibility. Even television: look at the softballs 
lobbed by interviewers posing as newsmen/newswomen and the burgeoning 
practice of kowtowing to celebrities.

I feel badly for the individuals and families bearing the brunt of rogue 
individuals' actions and the endemic bad management and leadership. There 
are good newspaper people -- photographers, reporters, editors and managers. 
But remember what Carl Bernstein said in the wake of the awards he received 
with Bob Woodward for their Watergate* reporting: "One of the easiest things 
in the world to be is a lazy newspaperman." That may not be verbatim, but 
it's as close as I remember. And, given today's environment, all too true 
and all too sad.

*(While I continue to rail against unnamed sources and such, all references 
to their then-unnamed "Deep Throat" source were accompanied by an editor's 
note telling readers that management knew who the source was; we don't see 
that today.)

My best wishes to the people who leave voluntarily and involuntarily, and 
their families. I also send my good wishes to an industry I love and was 
once part of. Truth is I miss it -- every time I read a newspaper (mostly 
the white space between the printed lines) and again when I wash the ink 
stains from my hands.

Greg Rubenstein
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