Dedicated to Print Journalists
This Web site is dedicated to print journalists – specifically, newspaper journalists.
We are not blind to the irony of the Web as the medium we will use to connect with one another; we’re well aware that it’s one of the many reasons print is facing dire losses of readership.
However, we hold hope there’s room for all sorts of media everywhere. We’re encouraged to see growth in newspapers in emerging countries, even as they decline in the United States.
We’ll be hosting discussions on the state of newspapers – and news in general – as this Web site develops.
Please check back — and feel free to participate.
What Next? Why Now? Why Here?
A lot of good people are losing their jobs through buyouts and layoffs. A lot of friends need a way to find each other. A lot of people need to know about their options and discuss ideas as to what happens next.
We’d like to help facilitate some of the above.
Employment Options
This isn’t a job board. There are better places to go if you just want to look at classified advertisements (remember those?) or post your resume.
On the other hand, if you’re interested into getting into another line of work, want an unbiased and possibly educated view, that is something we can rally around. If you have an entrepreneurial idea and need labor, a white board, advisers or investors, even better.
If you need help and advice turning the skills, knowledge and beat you have been working for the past 20 years into something that can either fill your time in retirement or use to support yourself until retirement, you’re in the right place.
Need advice on what to charge and how to bill your former newspaper when they come crawling back, begging you to write about your specific beat or work on special projects as a freelancer? Are they upgrading their pagination system (CCI, DTI, Harris, etc.) and need someone with newsroom experience to help with the training and roll-out? Are they now so short staffed that when all hell breaks loose (what we once called ”news”), they need bodies and are willing to pay through the nose?
We can help. If we can’t, someone else here can.
What We Aren’t: No Whining, Please
We could opine with the best of them as to why newspapers are dead. We could argue as to whether or not newspapers are dead. We could point fingers. We could name names. We could launch a 937-part investigative series complete with multimedia, print, television and radio tie-ins that ponders all things newspaper, business, society and cultural.
But, we won’t. Other people have done it already and likely better than we could do here. Quite frankly, we had had enough of the whining and hand-wringing. What happens now and next is where we want to be with this Web site.
The ‘We Are Print’ Staff
We are editors, reporters, designers and photographers. No one, individually, has less than 15 years of newspaper experience — some have more than 45 years of industry experience. Together, we have done it all, from hot type to cold Web pages and everything in between.
”Staff” may be too strong a word. These aren’t paying positions. The ads you see on these pages may someday put a dent in our Web hosting costs or subsidize our icy cold adult beverages. Right now, we don’t make enough from the ads to buy a single cup of coffee.
Information Provided Guaranteed or Your Money Back
We’re not your lawyer, CPA or priest. If you come here for advice and information, you’ll get advice and information. Some of it will be good. Some of it won’t. Some of it will be based in fact, experience, bona fide knowledge, specialized training or schooling. Some of it will be no better than what you heard at the water cooler. Set your expectations accordingly.
The only representation we make as to the accuracy and validity of the information provided is that it didn’t cost you anything and we try our best to get it right. If you find an error, please let us know.
Confidentiality
You can be as anonymous as you want. Nothing short of a court order will cause us to release your identity. We’ll probably decline to release any information so long as it isn’t our neck on the chopping block. Even then we’ll only have the information you provided: a username and e-mail address.
The paranoid amongst us are welcome to have two accounts: one for your real self so people can find you and one account so that you can post not-quite public but useful information.
Finally and Importantly: Be Nice
Losing a job you like is brutal. An entire industry getting kicked in the crotch isn’t a heck of a lot of fun either. Even those who got a sweet buyout followed by a healthy pension may be feeling the funk and be adrift. Please be respectful to your friends, co-workers and peers.
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