They say we only hurt the ones we love

I guess I should be thankful I am not currently working in the mainstream media.

The news has been grim all year, and there is no sign of it ending anytime soon. Like so many industries, people are losing jobs and workplaces are being retooled in order to remain profitable or return to profitability.

Last week, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was put up for sale with employees being told if it is not sold the paper may convert to online-only publication, or stop publishing altogether. This week my former employer, Gannett, announced that all non-union employees at their publication will be required to take a week off without pay in the first quarter of this year. This after enduring another round of layoffs at papers last quarter

I am so sad for my friends facing the hardships of losing jobs, losing pay. I am also trying to come to grips with realizing that I may never work in a mainstream newspaper newsroom again, due to jobs being lost and newspapers turning to a workforce shorter on experience that will cost less.

I love newspapers. I love the thrill of covering the news and providing information to the masses. I am a news junky. I love to know what's going on in my community, my former communities, my state, my country and to a lesser extent the world.

But I have a confession.

I do not subscribe to a newspaper. Not anymore.

I am a little ashamed to admit that on a public blog, but it's true.

There is no one single reason I don't subscribe. Perhaps not even a big reason. But the reasons add up to the point where it was easy to cancel my subscription to the local paper last year.

First off, I get my news from multiple sources throughout the day. I have a morning news program as I get ready for work. I listen to a news/talk radio station as I am shaving and showering and on my drive to work. I read a wire service at work, monitoring developments not only for the niche publication I work for, but also for other stories that are of interest to me. I also get bombarded with news releases from various government agencies, companies and organizations at work all day long. I visit multiple websites that feature or have news content on them. We also get a variety of general news and industry publications at work.

That's a lot of news. Too much really.

But I like the instantaneous nature of media today. I like watching events live on TV or online if they are important to me, personally or professionally. I like being able to choose from multiple sources of information when news breaks, like you can online.

It's not the same as stumbling across that story in a newspaper or magazine that catches your eye with its headline, or photographs, graphics or illustrations. It's fun to read stories that I surprise myself in finding I was interested in the topic. I like leaving though the pages to see what treasures are there.

But those treasures seemed to be becoming fewer and farther between. Mostly I found myself reading my local paper or the Oregonian and seeing a headline, or a story, and saying to myself, "I already knew about that. That's old news." It was easy to turn the page and I was left feeling empty. Disappointed.

I also try to be a responsible person and recycle my newspaper. But living in an apartment, I don't have curbside recycling. So gathering up the papers to be recycled was a pain. I still have a box of papers here that I need to take to the recycling drop-off site (along with several phone books, which I have no use for whatsoever, except at work, where they serve as a base for my computer monitor to bring it to eye level). Yep, there's still a box of newspapers to recycle, and like I said, I canceled my subscription last year, in June, judging by the papers at the top of the stack.

The subscription price just wasn't worth it. I don't want or need coupons. Canceling made sense to me. One less bill in the mail. One less payment to made.

The fact of the matter is, I don't really miss it. I pick up a paper now and again out of the rack. But both the Oregonian and Statesman Journal charge 75 cents for weekday papers now. Not a huge sum to be sure, but it seems a waste when I pay it and find only "old" news and then have to recycle the paper too.

I want to be a newspaper reader. I want to have the option of working at a newspaper again. But the fact of the matter is that newspaper companies are gutting their newspaper to remain profitable. They know they are losing readers, and advertisers to online, but still must maintain complex, slow production methods necessary to producing a print product (where the money still is for now) and can't fully focus on a web product and making that profitable.

My own industry and publication are certainly not immune to the economic effects or the trends spreading through the mainstream press like cancer. Our day of reckoning may be coming too, and perhaps it will be closer than we may know.

I realize I am one of the people holding a gun to the head of my own industry. Because my reading habits have changed, because I demand more information faster like so many in my generation and most people in the generations behind mind, there are new fewer people covering news in depth and with experience to do so in as objective a manner as is humanly possible (or probable). Oh, sure there are more bloggers sharing their own experiences and expertise in ways the traditional media never did. In many cases its more interesting, more focused and even more in-depth. But it's rarely balanced. Maybe the balance comes from reading so many perspectives, not getting multiple perspectives in one place. I do miss having a place to turn where people have compiled the news and event in one place that are deemed the most important for a community to know. Maybe that's the price we pay for having quick access to the news.

I do love the news. I love newspapers. I'm not sure if my first love abandoned me or I abandoned it. I dream of reconciling, but our differences may be irreconcilable. It's killing me. And killing newspapers too.