By DION RABOUIN
The UNITY News

It’s not a good time to be a newspaper reporter. In the past few years, buyouts and layoffs throughout the industry have taken the tone of normalcy. Some have been forced to face a new reality – journalism isn’t a calling anymore.

So, what are they doing?

Former newspaper journalists are doing as much as they can to transfer their skills into other areas, such as freelancing, blogging or going into public relations. Others have taken a completely new direction. One even opened an inn – for writers.

In her column for the Baltimore Sun, Jean Marbella wrote that her social life now “appears to revolve around retirement parties.” The Sun recently announced a round of 100 buyouts and layoffs.

Mariana Llamas-Cendon had been gainfully employed at Mi Estrella, a Spanish language publication of the Ventura County Star in Camarillo, Calif., but found herself suddenly out of a job when the publication’s owner, the E.W. Scripps Co., purchased another Spanish newspaper and laid off the three-person Mi Estrella staff.

Llamas-Cendon is now freelance reporting for publications in Mexico as well as doing translation work. “There’s not a lot of jobs for a bilingual journalist right now,” she said. “There are only a few, and I’ve already applied for those.”

Industry insiders blame the continuing malaise of diminished advertising and increased costs of paper stock for the job cuts and buyouts.

“Right now it’s the worst it’s been,” Marbella said. “It’s not so much fear – there’s an immense sadness, which is an odd feeling in the newsroom.”

Others who took buyouts – voluntarily or otherwise – have chosen to leave the newspaper business behind altogether.

G. Marc Benavidez, who has been a photojournalist for 14 years, is planning to move into a career in public relations after his split with the Wichita Eagle in Kansas. Benavidez, who graduated with a degree in public relations from the University of Texas at Arlington, said that he never expected to be “retiring” from journalism so soon.

“I’m only 33 – I never thought this would happen,” said Benavidez about receiving a buyout from the Eagle. “This is not the way I wanted to end my career.”

But some recently out-of-work journalists have chosen to view their predicament as an opportunity.

“It may not seem like it, but they have done you a favor,” said Gloria Neal, a former employee of Clear Channel and Infinity Radio. “They have freed you up for your next opportunity. So you need to get up and create and go and find your next opportunity.”

Neal has done just that – taking the time to blog, appear on television talk programs and write for Denver Woman magazine.

“The days of just doing one thing in this business are no more,” Neal said. “Journalists have to be able to do more than one thing, otherwise they become obsolete. People who are resistant to change get left behind.”

Some journalists like Gina Davis, who worked for 17 years with the Tribune Co. – 15 of them with the Baltimore Sun before she accepted a buyout last month – are moving into academia. Davis is set to be the associate director of media relations at McDaniel College in Maryland.

“I probably wouldn’t have requested the buyout if I had been less sure of the next step,” Davis said. “In this economy there are just too many people out there looking and not enough jobs – at least newspaper jobs. It just so happened that I knew about this opening at the college and it came together very quickly.”

Tina Brown is currently making a 180-degree career move. Brown, who accepted a buyout at the Hartford Courant in Connecticut, is planning to open her own bed-and-breakfast in Savannah, Ga., as a haven for distracted writers. Brown said the idea came to her while she was working on her literary nonfiction book, “Crooked Road Straight.”

“About two years ago I had a friend let me stay at his place while I was finishing my manuscript, and I realized how it important it was for a writer to get away and finish what they started,” she said. “Once I got the buyout, I knew it was a done deal.”

Still, some journalists aren’t giving up.

Having seen many of their members suddenly unemployed, the organizations within UNITY have offered scholarships to members who want to attend the conference, but have been too adversely affected by the newsroom layoffs to do so.

Kathy Times, chair of the NABJ Media Institute, which has been granting the scholarships, said, “This is something that’s hitting not only the young journalists – there are people who have been in the business 10, 20 years who are out of work.”

By Charly Edsitty
The UNITY News Online

Recently unemployed members of the National Association of Black Journalists gathered at UNITY on Thursday to give a voice and an open ear to those affected.

The meeting was spurred by an NABJ listserv post by Tina A. Brown, which drew an overwhelming response. She has been a staff writer at The Hartford Courant for 16 years and wrote that she took a buyout from the newspaper and would be out of a job by July 31.

“People are feeling kind of panicked,” said Jackie Jones, an NABJ member who helped coordinate the impromptu gathering of affected members attending the convention. “They don’t know where the industry is going.”

NABJ offered financial assistance to recently laid-off members to enable them to attend the convention.

Jones and fellow meeting coordinator Neil Foote, explained that comments on the listserv indicated that this was an important issue among the members.

After addressing the group, which met at the Sheraton hotel, Jones and Foote opened the floor to the audience. Many shared stories of surviving several rounds of buyouts and job cuts, and discussed skills that could be transferrable to other careers.

Both Jones and Foote are working to create a volunteer committee that will assist members who lose jobs. They hope to have a committee in place in two to three weeks.

“I could feel the pain of what people were writing on the listserv,” said former NABJ President, Sidmel Estes-Sumpter, who attended the meeting.

She lost her job two years ago at a Fox affiliate in Atlanta after 27 years.

“I was broadsided, I had no clue it was coming and beat myself up wondering why I didn’t see it,” she said.

Estes-Sumpter said she sunk into a depression after losing her job and faced home foreclosure.  She is still financially struggling, but is optimistic about her future.

“The first thing is to never give up,” Estes-Sumpter said. “Second, it’s not you. You are not the problem, it’s the industry. Third, think differently about being a journalist.”

Estes-Sumpter’s story is all too familiar to Brown who explained that more than a month ago she received an e-mail from her executive editor stating that there would be “significant” buyouts and layoffs that would affect people in the newsroom.

Brown explained that her exit wasn’t about the money, but a chance to change her life and take it in another direction. Employees were given nine days to make a decision.

Brown is hopeful about her future and said she is relying on her skills to pull her through hard times. Leading by example, she hopes to show other journalists that everything is not lost.

“There may be a time when I am panicking and crying, but right now I am not there,” Brown said.  “I have my faith, savings, family, friends and most of all I have skills. I can do anything.”

Brown holds no resentment toward her former employer but worries that job cuts may be affecting the bigger picture of journalism.

“Freedom of the Press might be destroyed because people have gotten into so much debt,” Brown said.  “I’m getting bought out because a company made some bad business decisions.”

By Dioni L. Wise
UNITY Online Staff

A message on the Young Black Journalists listserv led me to a thread on the TVSPY.com message board. The subject? Whether to attend UNITY.

Newspapers around the country have laid off staff by the dozens and haven’t replaced those positions, opting to institute a hiring freeze instead. So TVSPY Community Member, newzeye, wonders if any news directors will look to hire prospects at UNITY. (more…)