By DION RABOUIN
The UNITY News

While mainstream newspapers are laying off large numbers of staff and producing smaller papers, Native American tribal newspapers are doing just the opposite – increasing their staff, exploring new revenue sources and publishing more often. According to the Cherokee Phoenix, the Yakama Nation Review and the Native American Times, these efforts are all in hopes of better covering issues effecting Native people.
Relatively new compared to some mainstream newspapers, the tribal publications have been able to grow steadily by hiring journalists and staff members able to perform multiple functions – making it easier to set aside money for new hires.

The Yakama Nation Review has been in publication since 1970, the Native Times since 1994, and while the Cherokee Phoenix was first published in 1828, it has only been published continuously since 1977.
“I can’t tell you exactly how much our budget has grown, but I can tell you it has,” said John Shurr, a former Associated Press bureau chief, who now sits on The Phoenix’s editorial board. “We’ve gone from a quarterly publication six years ago to a monthly publication and are still primarily funded by the tribe.”

The Phoenix, based in Tahlequah, Okla., has almost doubled its staff – going from seven employees in 2003 to the current staff of 12.

The Yakama Nation Review has seen steady growth at the paper in a way many mainstream newspapers have not – through advertising.

“We see the need to expand staff-wise and currently we’ve been able to do that by generating that revenue ourselves through advertising,” said Ronnie L. Washines, multimedia program administrator at the Nation Review.

“There’s a perception that all tribes are doing well in gaming, but it’s on a tribe-by-tribe basis,” Wachines said. “In our situation we still have to depend upon ourselves to maintain our existence.”
The Toppenish, Wash., bimonthly paper projects advertising revenue of $45,000 – a jump more five times the amount from last year’s $8,000.

But while others are experiencing growth, some have had to find creative ways to be financially solvent.
At the Tulsa, Okla.-based Native American Times, which is published independently without financial assistance from a tribe, co-publisher and co-founder Liz Gray has had to find new and different ways to bring in revenue – like job ads – for the paper.

“When our display ad revenue went down we focused more on classified ads,” Gray said.  “There are a lot of people hiring now in Indian country – in casinos – so that has helped us a lot.”
The Times has created other new sources of revenue, including operating Native American job fairs and publishing a powwow guide.

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 Stu Woo
The UNITY News

As newspapers struggle with a slumping economy and industry-wide declines in advertising revenue, some have already cut back on internship programs, leaving aspiring journalists worried about job prospects.

“If the economy continues to tailspin, then I think we’re going to be in big trouble next summer in terms of (offering) internships,” said Reginald Stuart, a corporate recruiting consultant for The McClatchy Co.

Newsroom recruiters said internships won’t disappear completely – they are, after all, valuable recruiting tools for newspapers, which sometimes treat them as try-outs for full-time positions. But if the industry’s financial woes continue, the summer internship landscape may drastically change in coming years.

Right now, students can expect fewer internship opportunities, Stuart said. Internship programs are often the first casualty of newsroom budget cuts, and many papers – from the Tribune Company’s Los Angeles Times to small-town McClatchy papers – have already downsized their programs, he said.

Joe Grimm, recruiter for the Detroit Free Press, said newspapers could emulate a practice more common in the magazine industry: unpaid internships. Sheila Solomon, recruiter for the Chicago Tribune, which has about 20 unpaid interns this summer, said such internships are important because there are many talented student journalists, but not enough money to pay them.

Grimm calls that practice “reprehensible” because it puts students who are financially strapped or those who live outside major media markets at a disadvantage.

Stuart said such a system would seriously hurt current efforts to diversify newsrooms. “There’s an ongoing debate in the industry whether it’s better to have internships that are unpaid or to have no internships at all.”

Another possibility is to find third-party organizations to fund internships. At the Oregonian, an increasing number of interns have been paid by organizations such as the Asian American Journalists Association or the Kaiser Family Foundation, said George Rede, the Oregonian’s Sunday opinion editor and former newsroom recruiter.

The dwindling of internship opportunities worries Amanda Dolasinski, an Ohio State senior who is currently interning at the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch.

“I’m nervous because I know there’s not going to be a lot of opportunities,” said Dolasinski, who dreams of working for a large paper in the Washington, D.C., area.

Newspaper recruiters have tips for students who will be seeking internships next summer, but the most popular piece of advice appears to be this: learn multimedia skills to improve versatility in the newsroom.

Students should “have as many strong storytelling skills that they can possibly amass,” Solomon said. “They need to be able to learn to tell stories online, in audio and video, and they will need to learn to tell stories in print.”

Other recruiters advise students to be flexible and to temper their expectations as newspapers struggle. “Be prepared to accept (an internship) that is a cut below where you would ideally like to be,” Rede said.

By Dioni L. Wise
The UNITY News Online

A newspaper subscriber strikes back. A (Raleigh) News & Observer subscriber is suing the North Carolina-based newspaper for cutting staff and content in the paper.

Leah Friedman, News & Observer reporter, writes:

Keith Hempstead, a Durham lawyer, filed the suit last month in Wake Superior Court. He says he renewed his subscription in May just before the paper announced on June 16 the layoffs of 70 staff members and cuts in news pages.

The paper, he says, is now not worth what he signed up for and therefore the cuts breached the paper’s contract with him.

“Plaintiff alleges fraud in that the newspaper announced changes in the coverage after procuring renewals from Plaintiff and other subscribers,” Hempstead says in the complaint.

Have you experienced a similar display of discontent from a reader or viewer?

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ABOUT “The WATERCOOLER: You know that Julia Roberts movie and song by Bonnie Raitt “Something To Talk About?” Well, The UNITY News Online will use “The Watercooler” to give *you* something to talk about. Topics will include happenings at the UNITY Convention and the news industry, in general. Feel free to leave comments. Please read our discussion guidelines before posting.