Thursday 15 December 2022

It's Just a Job Strategy

 Over the past couple of weeks....between Meta/FB, CNN, Twitter, the Washington Post....the signs are there that a bunch of journalists, fact-checkers and social media creators....are about to lose their jobs.

The curious thing here....there's no real back-up plan or landscape....where a guy or gal can land, without losing half their level of income.

Adding to this situation....once the cuts occur....is that really the 'end'?  Could we reach the end of 2023, and find another 10,000 folks dumped?

I'm reminded of a story of a guy via social media that popped up around five years ago.  He'd come out of college with a journalism degree, and for several months....found no one really hyped to pay the level of pay that he expected.  He ended up at a small regional TV station...barely at $30k a year.  For a year or two, he lingered....then someone came along to suggest he wrote travel pieces for a magazine...mostly under an assumed name, and brought in a couple thousand a year.  A dozen years after college, he found his 'position' in the jobs market....mostly as a travel journalist.  It wasn't what he dreamed of....but it paid his lifestyle.

Most of these people....from the journalists, to the fact-checkers....will linger around, and eventually realize that their time with Twitter, or CNN, or WaPo.....was just a lucky streak.  Accept it, and just move on.  

Washington Post Story

 I sat and watched a piece yesterday.....WaPo management held a meeting with employees.

Basically, 500,000 subscribers left the paper in 2022.  

Management laid out the path....there would have to be some layoffs.  They didn't say the numbers, but the plan would start up in the first quarter of 2023.  

Actual number of journalists working there presently?  1,050 approximately.  I would suggest that a 10-percent cut is the probable outcome of this.  But you'd have to ask the question....will more subscribers leave in 2023?  

What really happened?  It's basically the CNN/NY Times trend.....you get to a biased state of existence, and people reach a stage where they say 'enough'.  

The days where they did investigative reporting?  Long gone.

The sad part of this story.....those hundred-odd journalists that they release...won't find any jobs in the region, for the pay-scale required.  A lot of these people will be disgruntled, and shake their heads because they saw this coming five years ago.