One year: Ruminations and recriminations

Today is my anniversary. But it's not the kind you celebrate.

One year ago today, I lost my job at The Indianapolis Star. Just writing those words seems incomprehensible to me, and I'm the one who's lived them.

I wish I could write one of those uplifting tales about keeping one's head high and using the time to explore new opportunities and learn new skills. I've tried to do all those things, but the truth is that being laid off is a pretty soul-crushing affair. The fact that I still haven't found a permanent position a year later only adds to this grim burden.

After 12 months of applying for hundreds of jobs, trolling employment sites and networking, the ugly fact is that I have had exactly two job interviews. And both of those were for low-level gigs that I probably would've been unhappy at anyway.

Given all that, you start to question yourself in ways both profound and ridiculous. You understand that with unemployment so high, employers are being inundated with applicants. Still, even applications to central Indiana newspapers haven't raised a peep of interest. The old methods of trying to establish a relationship are useless; the few news organizations that aren't cutting staff themselves broadcast dire warnings not to call or e-mail them.

Yes, I've kept busy. My wife Jean quips that I put in more hours now than when I was employed. That's likely true, but the vast majority of what I do is unpaid, or pays very little. I received a small amount of income from my film clients early this year, but one by one their freelance budgets dried up.

Around the first of February I had a choice to make: Continue to work for free in the hopes things would get better, or chuck it all. I chose to stick with it, and it's paid off: I'm getting a little bit of money now for movie and video reviews. My two Web sites have yet to produce a dollar of income, however.

Other freelance work has been sporadic, with September-October being particularly lucrative, and the time since a veritable wasteland. Still, the majority of my income comes from unemployment benefits, which will not last forever. I've already exhausted my state benefits, and am more than halfway through the federal allowance. I've been watching the news very carefully about Congress passing an extension.

I suppose I should be happier than I am. I've spent a year mostly doing what I love, writing about movies, albeit largely unpaid. Our finances are doing fine -- other than cutting back on eating out, we haven't noticed any appreciable change in our lifestyle. I have a wonderful marriage and a small but nice home. Many people are doing much worse.

Still, the skills that made me a good journalist -- and I was good ... am good ... I have to keep telling myself that -- force me to assess my situation soberly and rationally. When I do that, honesty compels me to say this year feels like lost time.

Thoughts on Central Florida newspapers

I spent most of my life and my journalism career in Florida, working for small- and mid-sized papers and dreaming of making it to the "big leagues" -- the St. Petersburg Times, Tampa Tribune, Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post, Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel or my hometown paper, The Orlando Sentinel.

Never broke in with any of them. I interviewed at the Post, but it happened to be on the same day one of the biggest stories in recent history broke (troubled student shot a teacher in his classroom), and I kind of got lost in the shuffle -- the last two editors who were supposed to talk to me had to cancel. Had a few sniffs from the Times, but nothing solid. Was in the running for film critic at the Sun-Sentinel, but didn't make the finalist list. I was all set to be hired by the Sentinel back in '01 -- they were bringing me down for a drug test, which is code for "you got the job" -- when a hiring freeze came down like an anvil.

Eventually I made it to a major metro paper, but I had to move to Indianapolis to do it.

So it's been interesting to me to come home for the first time in a year or so and read the Orlando Sentinel, St. Pete Times and Tampa Trib. All three have struggled in the downturn that's hurt virtually every newspaper. So I was curious to see how their print products are faring. So what follows is the assessment of a Florida boy who read the papers for years, after a long hiatus during which the world was turned upside-down.

Short version: The Sentinel and Times seem to be holding up pretty well -- certainly much better than the Indy Star, and certainly when it comes to features coverage, the thing I care most about. The Trib ... not so much.

Orlando is part of the Chicago Tribune chain, bought up by Sam Zell and now in bankruptcy despite massive redesigns dictated by the new bosses. Redesigns are, in my humble opinion, both the first and last refuge of the unimaginative newspaper boss. A new editor or publisher comes in, or a new owner takes over, and invariably they want to remake the product to fit their bold and innovative ideas. Or, the same old crew looks at some numbers and decide they need to "freshen" things up. In the latter case, expensive consultants are invariably brought in to tell the people who have been doing their jobs for years how they would be doing them if they were stupid enough to work there, instead of being high-paid consultants.

That said, the Sentinel's redesign -- the first of the big Trib papers -- isn't awful. I like some touches, like starting columns such as political writer Scott Maxwell's above the section banner (Metro, Sports, etc.). But I can't stand it when they start regular stories in that spot. You can only fit in two or three inches of text, so it's hard to get even a small bite of the story before the jump.

As the former entertainment editor for the Indy Star, it made me envious to see the Sentinel's Friday entertainment section so fat with faces and copy. Yes, it's shrunk a lot, and there were a lot of quick-hit items I would have like to read more about. But it's still a pretty damn comprehensive A&E guide. My friend and colleague Roger Moore, one of the few remaining full-time movie critics in the Sunshine State, is still cranking out copy like a machine.

Despite having something like 40,000 less daily circulation than the Indy Star, the Sentinel still boasts a movie critic, TV critic, pop music writer, theater critic, performing arts critic, etc. They've even still got the "Commander Coconut" column I enjoyed for so many years.

The restaurant critic got the axe, but they still have restaurant reviews courtesy of the dining editor. Although her review for this past Friday was of Qdoba's -- the Mexican chain that's just a half-step up from fast food. What's next, a critique of Burger King? Puzzling choice.

Orlando's metro section was a bit thin, but the sports page was still quite robust. They have an amazing number of sports columnists despite the fact that the number of pro and college sports franchises in town is ... well, two: the Orlando Magic and UCF Knights.

Verdict: Although noticeably skimpier, the Sentinel is a good-looking paper that still boasts a lot of depth.

While we were in the Tampa Bay area for my sister's wedding, my parents got the Tampa Trib at their hotel while we received the St. Pete Times at ours. My dad howled at the injustice, particularly when it came to the sports sections. On Saturday, the Trib's sports section consisted of eight pages, three of which were full-page ads.

The Times has long been regarded as the best paper in Florida, and I'd say it's still got a good shot at keeping the title. Both days I saw it, St. Pete was thick and rich with a lot of day-to-day stories, but also some more ambitious stuff mixed in.

They had a running series where they looked at the public schedules of the state's top officials, starting with Gov. Charlie Crist, and figured out how many days off that worked out to -- something like a few months off every year. That's good old-fashioned shoe-leather gotcha journalism -- or in this case, poring through computerized records instead of wearing out shoes. If I was a top editor at another major metro paper anywhere in the country, I would immediately steal this idea.

In comparison, the Trib's coverage looked like what it is: The weak paper in one of the few remaining two-newspaper towns, and one that's barely holding on by its fingernails. From features to metro to sports and the front pages, the Tampa Tribune reads like it's just going through the motions.

One thing that I found interesting, and disturbing, was how much the two papers' Saturday editions copied each other.

The Tampa Bay Bucs were playing a game in London, and both papers had stories about an English fellow who had been worshipping the NFL team since he was a teen-ager. I mean, what are the chances of them both finding the same guy? The only thing I can think of is that he must promote himself pretty heavily on the Web or something. But still, at some point one paper must have realized the other was profiling the same guy. Wouldn't you have switched gears at that point? Although I suppose if they come out on the same day, there's no way to pick who was the copycat.

Both the Trib and Times have Saturday themed features sections that were tabloids devoted to health, dining and beauty. It's bizarre to me that competing papers would put out sections that were essentially Xeroxes of each other -- especially since these elements are not a natural combination. Who wants to read dining coverage next to stories about 69-year-old skinny super athletes? I think one of them, or maybe both, even had a little travel coverage in there, too. Both sections read like the feature department's leftovers -- things that maybe once had its own section and have been squeezed to fit together in this tabloid.

I found it hilarious and astonishing that both papers have automobile reviews (one staff writer, one a syndicated piece, as I recall) and they were both reviewing the 2010 Porsche Cayenne SUV. Again, what are the chances?!? Having done a little auto writing myself, I know it's probably a matter of the new models being made available to the press around the same time. But again, if I knew my competition was writing about the same subject as me, I'd be tempted to find a really good original take on it, or look for something else to write about that week.

Metro sections: The St. Pete Times was full of local bylined stories about a variety of topics. The Trib was a ghostown.

Verdict: The St. Petersburg Times has to rank as one of the best regional newspapers in the country, and the Tampa Tribune's days are numbered. I hope that's not the case, but based on my two-day assessment of their print product, they're not giving me much reason to hope.

It should not go without mentioning that the Times is owned by the non-profit Poynter Institute, so it hasn't felt the squeeze that for-profit operations like the Trib and Sentinel have. But still, they've had their own staff reductions and newshole squeezes.

So that's my take of Central Florida's three major newspapers, from a native and newspaper junkie after a long spell away. Perhaps we'll get down to South Florida sometime soon, and I'll assess the Herald, Post and Sun-Sentinel.

News flash: Newspapers still profitable

Alan Mutter has the scoop over at his Newsosaur site: Despite all the whining about newspapers representing the about-to-expire dinosaur of media, on average they remain one of the most profitable bets of any industry.

For 2008, the average newspaper showed just a hair under a 13 percent profit margin. That's way down from the historic highs for the industry -- profits in the 20s and 30s were not unusual in boomtimes. But contrasted with virtually every other major form of business around, it's very good. Many companies lost money last year, and even ones that were considered very successful -- such as oil companies -- had margins about half of what newspapers had.

So even though advertising revenue has plummeted with the economic downturn, and some of it has permanently migrated to the Web, the old ink-on-dead-trees model remains strong.

The problem is not cash flow, but debt. Most newspapers are owned by corporations, which have racked up huge volumes of debt in order to acquire papers or expand into online ventures that have yet to become significant revenue streams. Take the Tribune company, long considered one of the strongest chains. When Sam Zell took over in late 2007, he expanded the company's $5 billion debt load to nearly $13 billion. That was sustainable as long as the newspapers remained the cash cows they had been. But when the current recession descended, bankruptcy became inevitable.

Even Gannett, which has not been leveraged as heavily as some other chains, is now facing huge debt repayments in the next couple of years. So they're forced to cut and cut.

The Indianapolis Star has been through a buyout and (by my count) three rounds of layoffs in the last three years, and is doing another major cutback this week. Word flying around is that the Star is going to take a 100-person hit, with probably 30 to 40 percent of that coming from the newsroom. That would leave the news gathering force at around 140-150 people, down from around 260 when I joined the paper in June 2005. This despite a recent estimate published in the Indianapolis Business Journal that the Star is still pulling in around a 15 percent profit margin.

Newsroom employees are like Boxer, the loyal and hard-working horse from George Orwell's "Animal Farm." They pull more than their fair load, but it's never enough for the indifferent and/or self-serving bureaucrats who run the show. Then they're sent off to the slaughterhouse -- or rather the unemployment line, which in this economy is nearly the same thing.

Congratulations

In this time when it seems like the only news about newspapers is soul-crushingly bad, it's always welcome to hear about the good work they still do.

On that note, I'd like to congratulate my many former Indianapolis Star colleagues who won awards at the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists award contest. The Star had another impressive year, picking up 19 first-place wins and 38 all together.

I'd especially like to laud Neal Taflinger and Konrad Marshall, who won first and third place, respectively, in the lifestyle feature category. Feature departments at the Star and most newspapers have been especially hard hit during the economic downturn, so it warms the heart to see them honored.

I myself won second place in the A&E feature category. It was for an IndySunday cover story I did about the rising influence of African-American film.

I do have a cautionary note, though, to all those who won and especially to those who thought they might and didn't: Don't let an award, or lack of, lay too heavily on your ego. If they're honest, the people who run these contests will confess how arbitrary the process is. It falls to a tiny group of journalists, usually out-of-staters, to pass judgment, with their own biases and predilections.

I remember one of the biggest awards I won in the early part of my career, for the SPJ regional contest covering the entire South. I won the top award, known as the Green Eyeshade, for breaking news about a shooting in rural Florida. I was about 26 years old at the time and over the moon. Then I submitted the same story, in the same category, to the state SPJ contest and didn't even rate an honorable mention.

So, to those who won: Cherish this award, but don't let it go to your head. To those who didn't: Keep plugging; your time will come.

More newspaper layoffs: 50 in Miami Herald newsroom, 4 features writers

There's a list going around of the 50 journalists who lost their jobs at the Miami Herald today in the latest whackety-whack that is to today's newspaper industry what the sound of the teletype was a generation ago.

You'll notice that there are four features reporters' names on it. I counted one business reporter and one sportswriter, and a couple of bureau reporters.

Sadly, this proportion seems to echo what's happening when newspapers make cuts: Features writers are always the first to go, and always the department hit hardest. Even though features is generally one of the smallest departments at any paper, a majority of the reporting jobs lost usually come from there.

When they laid off 20 of us from the newsroom of the Indy Star in December, nearly one-third of the bodies were from the features department (or, using the term employed by senior managers and no one else, the "My Life" department). Four reporters, a copy editor and a page designer lost their jobs. (Technically, the designer was part of the visuals department, but she worked full-time on features products.)

No sportwriters, business writers or any metro reporters were laid off. After features, the department hardest hit was the Northside bureau. If you look at the sort of things they write about in the North tabloid, you'll see that it looks more like a features section than a metro section.

It's depressing that features is always at the bottom of the totem pole, everywhere you go. I spent the first half of my career on the "hard news" side, so I saw first-hand how devalued folks on the "soft news" side were (starting with that term.)

Traditionally, features was where the best writers (i.e., wordsmiths) in the newsroom gravitated. It was the place where they tried to do real storytelling, serious coverage (including criticism) of the arts, and essentially breathe some life into the paper. Yes, there was often some silly and frivolous stuff in the features section, but it balanced out the more sobering (especially these days) timbre of the rest of the paper.

Features is, if you will, the dessert of a satisfying newspaper meal. It should be the part you really want to read, as opposed to the stuff you feel you must read to be a well-informed citizen.

But, when push comes to shove, and dollars turn into cents, newsroom managers in Indianapolis and Miami, and everywhere, always turn to the features department first. Always it was, and always it shall be...

Reflections on the Seattle P-I

Even as you're reading this, they may have already announced the closing down of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The Hearst-owned daily had been put up for sale with a deadline of 60 days, with pretty much the full knowledge that no buyer would come forward.

I feel bad for all the fine journalists there who are about to lose their jobs, as I did for all the folks at the Rocky Mountain News, which also folded recently. The San-Francisco Chronicle and Tuscon Citizen are also in danger of going under.

The PI has special significance for me, though, in that for a number of years I'd hoped to work there. Some years ago I went to a features journalism conference, and a senior editor from the PI (I won't say who) approached to tell me that they had been one of the judges in the arts criticism contest that I had won, and how impressed they were with my stuff.

I can't begin to tell you what this meant to me, personally and professionally. I was doing fine work at a smaller paper, but I felt like I was stuck playing Triple-A ball, so to speak. To have a big-city metro editor tell me I had the goods ... well, I was over the moon.

Anyway, we kept in touch and there was some fairly serious talk for awhile about becoming film critic there, although it never materialized. Movie critic Bill Arnold has kept the torch burning there until the PI's demise.

So it's ironic for me to think about. Here I am, having moved to Indianapolis nearly four years ago without knowing a soul here, now happily married and part of the community but laid off from the Star. If the sands of fate had shifted but a little, I could be in Seattle waiting for my paper to close its doors. Either way, it's sobering and it's sad.

Why I still take the newspaper

Before heading off to the gym this morning, I followed my usual routine of reading the newspaper where I was formerly employed. Some people might wonder why I still do this, paying money to an institution that cut me loose so readily, and for a product that has clearly diminished. It's especially hard for someone like myself who is very interested in arts & entertainment and other feature coverage, and The Indianapolis Star has essentially eliminated the features section four days a week.

Oh, I know there's something included in the paper called an "Extra" section that the Star honchos would claim is the features section, but let's be blunt here: It's the classified section, filled out with comics and puzzles. There's been one small "story" at the top of the section each day, but it's a five- or six-inch blip with little substance. (I'm not being snooty; I had to write plenty of these myself over the years.)

The comics, puzzles, TV listings and syndicated columns are what we in the features biz call "furniture" -- stuff that occupies the same space day after day, and can be slapped in with minimal effort and editing.

They'd talked about these changes for months before they happened, and the question everyone in features department had was whether they were simply folding the features section into an existing part of the paper, as they have done with the business section, or actually eliminating all the daily features content except for the furniture. Now that we've seen it, it's clearly the latter.

So why do I still take the paper? Part of it is habit. I grew up with parents who read the paper every day (and still do), and it rubbed off. I can't imagine my day without thumbing through the sections, even though there's less and less of what I like to read. Some days "reading the paper" consists of a 5-minute skim.

Another part of it is reading the bylines of friends and former colleagues. Matt Tully takes a lot of beating in the Indy blogosphere, but he's a good friend and a good columnist, and I want to hear what he has to say. Ditto for David Lindquist, Shari Rudvasky, Mike Wells, Erika Smith and many others whose bylines I consistently enjoyed.

But the most basic reason is the one I would give to people when I was still employed by a newspaper, and they asked why they should pay for what they can get online for free. It's that news, or content, or whatever you want to call it, doesn't come free -- the good stuff, anyway. If I want to see this stuff, whether online or on paper, I feel I should pay something for it. Otherwise, it's likely to just go away ... suddenly, or bit by little bit.