Printed Matters

By now, most people know the story of how free daily Metro in Toronto laid off all its writers and is carrying out all copy editing functions with interns it had taken on three days beforehand. The news traveled around the world, with blogs lamenting the loss of paid staff and twitterers tweeting and retweeting the news.

But has anyone considered what it must be like for those Metro interns? To have to start out their careers as scabs? To learn in an environment where there are no experienced co-workers to learn from? To show up for work every day where the atmosphere and morale must be like poison?

Canada’s newspapers are suffering. Layoffs, hiring freezes and general gutting of the newsroom have become the norm rather than the exception. All this is having negative effects on interns, too.

Look what one of my friends, who is interning at the daily paper in a mid-size Canadian city, wrote to me:

The shit is going down here. They laid off 1/4 of the newsroom staff last Tuesday and I got to witness all the tears and bloodshed. It was quite awkward and things are pretty dismal here at the moment…

The first month was good…got lots of assignments, bylines, etc but now morale is so low I’m just not motivated to do anything. Nor is anyone else. It’s kinda toxic. I need to get out! I want to be at an online publication. Somewhere with a fucking chance of survival.

Then just today:

I’m heading back to Toronto mid-March for sure now. Can’t hack it here any longer. The vibes are totally unmotivating and I need to be somewhere else. So I will finish the other half in the big smog. Can’t wait to get back.

Another friend, interning at a big Toronto daily:

Doing design. But thinking I should either change industries and go into like advertising or something (and go back to school for graphic design) or move to online … we will see though.

Others couldn’t find placements at all. I myself missed out on a placement at the Toronto Sun when Sunmedia laid off 600 workers and union rules prevented interns from taking their spots.

The upshot is that not only are newspapers gutting the only thing that gives them any value at all – their newsrooms – they are ensuring that the next generation of journalists will want nothing to do with them either.

As you can see from the quotes from my friends above, some journalism wannabes are considering moving to online publications. Others may consider starting their own online publications, to create their own opportunities. Those who – like me – have programming skills might embark on infrastructure projects that combine web tech with journalism.

I think it’s safe to say, however, that few of us will be working at newspapers when all this is over. And I think j-schools had better hurry up and change to reflect the new reality.

Look what Pat Thornton twittered:

Journalism students, I’ll bite. You’re screwed. I feel so ashamed that more people haven’t been honest with you.

Thanks for being honest, Pat. But we don’t need that kind of honesty from a 25-year-old journalist and entrepreneur. We need it from our j-schools. (No offense to Pat, who is doing good work.)

We need our colleges to tell us straight up that it’s going to be tough to get jobs in this industry unless you have certain non-traditional skills. And we need colleges to be flexible enough to start teaching those new skills.

Suzanne Yada and her compadres at Innovation in College Media have issued a challenge: write a blog post about what you’d like to see your j-school teach, then bring a professor to join tonight’s #collegejourn chat. Could be a good chance to let colleges know what we demand from them.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS