We had massive layoffs at my newspaper yesterday

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

15% of the workforce, many 30+ year employees canned.
I was spared, but I hardly think the worst is over.

Was wondering what advice you folks would have for a guy with 5 years of newspaper experience and a master's in print journalism, as far as getting out of the industry?

[elleng]

1. 'Print journalism' meaning 'writing,' or what?

Teach

[LWolf]

10. Lilke there are openings in teaching?

We lost 42 teachers Wednesday. Neighboring districts are all losing teachers, some more, some less.

Our local satellite college campus is closing it's doors and riffing those college teachers.

[elleng]

Depends on lots of things.

Location is one of them. And it may or may not be public schools. I check craigslist regularly, in dc/md area, and there are many entities seeking teachers of one kind or another.

Students/youngsters must learn, and we should continue to try to provide such service.

[elleng]

12. dupe

[lapfog_1]

2. Get out.

Newsies are dying. Many think they can morph to the internet and get paid by readers. It won't happen. Huffpo is a decent online rag... convince them that when they can no longer write one or two paragraph "synopsis" and post a link to a real newspaper, that they will need writers that do investigative reporting (they already have plenty of OpEd bloggers / writers). Be willing to work for peanuts and then DIG a find a story, any story. Write well and hope for the best. If one of your stories catches the public's fancy, write a book and save all the money you make from it.

Good luck. We are all depending on you.

[JamesA1102]

3. Start you own blog.

Try to do some local reporting on your own if you can afford to not get a real job for a while. Promote in your community as best you can and once it gets popular enough launch it as its own site as an alternative to the local newspaper. When that happens target local retailers for advertising. They use rely on newspaper as a cheap way to get their message out and the dollars they use to spend on newspaper advertising needs to go somewhere.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. Are you a writer, an editor? nt.

[geckosfeet]

5. Read Jeffrey Zeldmans book about transitioning to the web.

A free download from one of his websites. It's more oriented to the creative side though.

http://www.zeldman.com/2009/04/16/taking-your-talent-to-the-web-is-now-a-free-downloadable-book-from-zeldmancom/

It's a whole book so it might take a while without broadband.

[madrchsod]

6. my opinion is....

there`s something about picking up a piece of paper and reading the printed words. the internet is a great source for information but someone has to feed the machine.

i had a mimeograph machine in the good old days during the 60`s...-it was exciting to see the words i wrote come out of the machine...

printing words on a piece of paper is far more personal than typing on this keyboard.

and my advice is to start thinking about starting your own weekly newspaper.

[sandnsea]

7. Help your paper transition

People will buy local info and local opinion. Take clues from the web, more pictures, more graphics, classifieds with a web address, things like that. Tell your publisher to wake up and try new things. Maybe a magazine style. Track your online traffic and see what people really like and put more of that in the paper. Make your advertisers personalize their ads, add info and tidbits, like an internet widget does. Be journalists.

[DFW]

8. My father was a print journalist for 52 years

Only the Grim Reaper had enough authority to remove him from work.

Of course, he worked from 1948-2000, and so didn't have to undergo
the current mess, but in the time he was active, he made it a point
to do as much, learn so much, and got to know so many people in a
short time, that he made himself indispensible to his small town
paper. Seven years after he got to Washington, a green kid from
Chicago got to town and asked who he should see to learn the ropes
in D.C. Everyone pointed him in the direction of my Dad. The Chicago
kid's name was Robert Novak, and although he went the opposite
direction politically from my father, he remained friends with him.

My dad made it a point to seek out the Canadian ambassador and
organized a weekly Wednesday morning breakfast with him, and
his every successor. That gathering still carried my father's
name years after he had passed on. Still does, for all I know.

The point is, get around, find out stuff, make connections,
make yourself such an institution with your paper that you'll
be the last one to go before the editor himself. My dad's
paper was in a one-horse town in upstate New York, but you
can adapt the principle to your own paper.

[KharmaTrain]

9. Learn New Technology...

I'm not a print person, but one who has an extensive background in broadcasting, but the two industries suffer from similar problems. The world is changing but the industry...top heavy in corporate are loath to change. Part of it is being comfortable for too long in being able to control the local media market and its advertising dollars...for decades, papers were the only game in town. Now you have cable tv and the internet...as well as younger generations that were ignored or taken for granted that have glammed onto IPODs and websites as their information and entertainment sources.

For the past decade, I've been working in the "brave new world"...constantly fighting the gap between "old school" and the "techies"...but there's a great future, IMHO, for those who understand the fundamentals of print and journalism and can translate it to blogs, twitters and whatever the newest media sensation is.

The worst isn't over...revenues continue to sink as long as consumers aren't spending. The print media's dilemma is finding ways to make new technology pay...find a happy medium between keeping their material avaiable online but finding a way, through ads or other "perks" to generate money to pay the bills. If you can fit into the new world, you will do very well.

You're in a good position to prepare yourself...and sounds like you have your eyes and options open. Good luck...

[shadowknows69]

11. Very sorry to hear this

Went I started Journalism school in 1990 one of the first things my Professor told us was that after graduating, we would probably have to work for free for a while, there are no jobs anyway, and we'll have to learn to drink.

I ended up in radio/PR/advertising. Best of luck to you. Your best advantage is that you're probably smarter than about 85% of the work force out there. If only that was valued as highly as it should be these days.

[anigbrowl]

13. Go freelance (in stages)

If you can research and write good long articles and your contract doesn't prohibit it, start submitting query letters to magazines that publish long-form journalism - Rolling Stone, New Yorker etc. Your experience is useful. Your master's degree isn't.

[Cetacea]

14. Good idea.

Print journalism won't completely die. Best Buy is now selling Vinyl LPs even as CD sales continue to decline.
Community Newspapers will probably continue to thrive.

Keep an eye out for some new magazines that are a combination of journalism and entertainment ala Rolling Stone, or existing magazines that adopt like formats.

Keep an eye out for alternative newspapers and new traditional style newspapers.

Print will survive, but it's heyday is passed.

[Moondog]

15. Recognize that the newspaper industry is in its death throes.

The sooner you start and implement your personal transition plan, the better off you will be. Since there already are sizable numbers of unemployed J-school grads, with more to come, it would probably be more productive to take stock of what marketable skills / experience / education you have other than journalism and the news biz. Is there a way to combine these other skills with your journalism credentials?

Do you know people who are _not_ in the same industry as you? Start networking. As a practical matter, since you clearly can put together a coherent sentence, you are way ahead of most of the working population. If you also "play well with others", then you are 90% of the way there. Most people can learn the essentials of most jobs, assuming that some sort of professional license is not a requirement for the position. The real issue for someone making a hiring decision, once you make the initial cut, is whether or not he or she thinks you will "fit in" to that particular workplace. If you are offered something that looks like an entry, or near entry, level position in another industry that looks promising, but in which you have no previous experience, if it were me I'd think pretty hard about taking the longer term view and taking the job. If at first you need to make up some lost income, so be it. Moonlight for a while, if need be. Do what you have to do.

Good luck.

[Cetacea]

17. The planet is. Newspaper industry? Not so much.

People twenty-five and under will rescue and appreciate print media as they did with vinyl lps.

[mainer]

16. As one who looks forward to the "thump" of my morning paper,

I am sorry to hear of the troubles at your newspaper. While I do get a lot of my news on the internet, somehow I don't really BELIEVE a story until I see it in print, in the newspaper. Maybe I'm just an old dog, but I don't think I'm alone in this. The journalistic standards of major newspapers haven't yet been matched by most online sources. Nowadays anyone can claim to be a "reporter"; all they have to do is start a blog.

As for your own dilemma, I have to agree with an earlier post -- knowledge and connections are never wasted. You're a writer; you can channel that skill into areas other than journalism. Ever wanted to write a book? Now's the time to start!

[Badgerman]

18. One group in the newspaper industry is actually thriving...

What is rarely reported is the fact that locals, whether dailies, twice weeklies or weeklies are thriving. The reason is that they carry stories of interest to their readers, stories about their towns and counties. Stories detailing such world shaking events as a library board meeting, the local drama clubs latest offering, the doings of the Ladies Reading & Smut-snatchers Society. And since almost all locals find something of interest for them, the local businesses buy advertising and the paper thrives.

Large dailies screwed up. When things tightened the first ones laid off were not management, but reporting staff, then came the editorial staff. What did they use to fill those columns that used to contain local stories? They plugged in wire service stories, the same ones that appear hours earlier on the internet. Then the Editors and publishers sit, scratch their nether regions and look befuddled and decide to lay off the remaining copy writers. In a word the large dailies all have been infected by the Stupid Virus!

[Kat45]

20. Unfortunately, the small papers tend to pay little or nothing. n/t

[AngryAmish]

19. Take up cage fighting

Or perhaps learn a trade, like electrician or plumbing.

No one will pay for journalism anymore. Absolutely no one will pay for opinion.

You truly are in the buggy whip business. Get out while you can.

You think you will get a big Watergate story that will make your bones. Even if you do it won't pay. I assume you want a family. If you do, get out of journalism. Do something useful that someone will pay for (I'm not kidding about plumbing - it is both useful and lucrative. The cage fighting I am kidding.)