Profunksticated

Profunksticated admits to having days where he misses working for daily newspapers – experiencing the cacophony of newsroom noise rising as deadline approaches, feeling the rush of seeing one’s byline in print (the part my ego loved), and exhibiting devotion toward the idea that being in journalism is to help make a difference, even if some readers don’t always appreciate what one writes.

Those days are becoming fewer and farther between. Not a day goes by, it seems, that I don’t hear of one more newsroom shedding staff in an effort to cut costs. And the cuts seem to disproportionately hurt minority journalists. You know, last hired, first fired and all that sort of rot. The latest round of such slashings has occurred at the Chicago Tribune.

When I tell folks I was once a reporter, they seem awed and amazed that I once did something they perceive as exciting. One person asked me why I don’t return to what I once loved instead of doing grunt work for Corporate America.

I told her newspapers are struggling. The average newspaper, I explained, derives about 25 percent of its revenue from subscriptions and newsstand sales. The other 75 percent comes from organizations and individuals who pay to advertise their products, services or other messages.

I said a large part of what’s hurting papers is declining readership, driven largely by – lo and behold – the Internet. My older kids, for example, know that Dad put food on the table by writing for newspapers. But do they read newspapers today? Heck no, they get their news online.

But there’s the other part of the newspaper-killing equation — declines in advertising. I drove home my point thusly: “If you want to sell a car or a dining room set, how are you going to advertise? Are you going to pay the local newspaper to run a classified ad or are you going to list it on Craigslist for free?”

At that point, my questioner nodded in understanding and said, “Oh, yeah.”

Being a proposal specialist in Corporate America may not carry the stimulation of writing about police killing a mentally deranged man during a standoff; chronicling the grief of a father whose son died corkscrewing a small plane into a field; or reporting on local officials who voted to site a landfill amid howls of protest from its neighbors.

But as I told Raw Dawg Buffalo in response to a comment, “It payz da billz.”

Peace.