Linda Stewart Ball left The Dallas Morning News in 2006, and she couldn’t be professionally happier. “I’m extremely satisfied,” says Ball, forty-seven, a reporter at the paper for fourteen years who accepted a buyout and became a freelance writer. “I love being my own boss.” Reese Dunklin, who received a 2004 Livingston Award for Young Journalists, chose not to take the buyout. At thirty-three, Dunklin wants to remain at the Morning News but concedes he is worried about the paper’s future. “At times you wonder where it’s all headed,” he says, “because you sense this air of desperation.”
Management at The Dallas Morning News used a combination of layoffs in 2004 and buyouts in 2006, plus attrition, to slash some two hundred journalists—30 percent of the staff—from the newsroom. This kind of scenario has played out at metropolitan dailies across the country, from Long Island to California. But what happens afterward? What has been the result for those who left, for those who stayed, and for the Morning News itself as managers make cuts to try to maintain profitability?
What we found is that Ball and Dunklin are not atypical. We surveyed almost half of the two hundred who left the Morning News as well as dozens who stayed, and the findings are surprising. Whether they jumped or were pushed, most of those who left are more satisfied today than before they left. More than half managed to stay in journalism.
Those who remain, meanwhile, say the mood is uncertain at best. Circulation is in freefall. Readers increasingly are dissatisfied. Turnover disrupts stability. Many older staff members were pushed out in the layoffs; now some of the younger ones are leaving on their own. Brittany Edwards, a twenty-four-year-old feature writer who plans to try magazine writing, says many staff members...
Complete access to this article will soon be available for purchase. Subscribers will be able to access this article, and the rest of CJR’s magazine archive, for free. Select articles from the last 6 months will remain free for all visitors to CJR.org.
Thorough and interesting article. I posted it on my job blog (www.sunoasis.com/jobblog.html
A few points:
1- Down-sizing always happens to real people and not numbers.
2- What is happening in newspapers is a continual erosion of loyalty
between "the company" and the employees. Employees, even journalists have to see themselves as free agents.
3- Writing, editing, reporting talent is very transferrable up and down the labor spectrum.
4- I can see what newspaper management is doing: Cut everything out in the paper that is being done well on the web such as movie, restuarant reviews. Stay local.
5- What is happening today was predicted long ago by Alvin Toffler among others. That is, mass media would be deconstructed across the board once computers were all connected together. At that moment a "communications revolution" is created not simply a technological one.
David Eide
Sunoasis.com
Posted by jobsbard
on Thu 5 Jul 2007 at 12:32 PM
Interesting story. However, I wonder whether it accurately reflects the feelings of all of those who left.
Could it be that only the happy and lucky ex-employees were willing to be interviewed, while those who have flamed out weren't so willing to share?
I also wonder whether researchers asked about finances. Are the happy people also better off financially than they were at the Morning News, or are they happy despite having a lower standard of living and worse benefits?
Posted by ecreager
on Fri 6 Jul 2007 at 09:32 AM
Thanks for explaining how and why my hometown newspaper so quickly became The Dallas Boring News and sadly joined the ranks of the Fort Worth Startlegram and Houston Comical.
Why read the paper or watch its broadcast affiliates if:
• the national and international news goes no deeper than what we’ve already seen in AOL pop-ups.
• they take incidental local news and try to make it tabloid
• they no longer take the time to balance stories or editorials
• they dropped features that made DMN unique or represented the interests of “fly over country”
• you’re not a Cowboy or Stars fan.
To have dropped the opportunity to exploit the Texas connection with Washington makes me think DMN is no longer on the presidents’ reading list either.
If you re-build it, they will come…if it’s not too late.
Posted by DallasBits
on Fri 6 Jul 2007 at 01:03 PM
Tracy,
Your article read like a novel and was well-researched. I feel very happy to have been one of your students! I have a great example to follow in journalism. Cindy (Brown) Mallette
Posted by Jars583
on Sat 21 Jul 2007 at 10:22 AM
All I would have to do is replace the names and this story would be about the paper I work for.
In many respects companies that own newspapers are unwisely placing their money on technology and guessing that the web and videos--warts and all--will be the new frontier for revenue.
"fool's gold" I say to them.
Journalism is a "calling," not just a job. You enter it to serve the public and to help humanity evolve. When those who control newspapers are only in pursuit of profits, the "public service" in journalism is abandoned, and you end up with "infotainment." Why do I remain? The mortgage….
Posted by Worldfoto.org
on Mon 30 Jul 2007 at 06:21 PM
I've lived in Dallas for 25 years, and am not a journalist, but I'm a newspaper reader and am interested from that point of view. One important aspect you failed to mention (and maybe it was not germane to this article) is the extreme political bias of the newspaper. The CEO Robert Decherd is a graduate of the Dallas prep school St. Mark's, and is part of the business elite of the city, which is very much like a country club. His paper consistently sides with business interests (read: Republicans) in this city.
A case in point was the biggest politicial issue this city has seen in the last 50 years, where Dallas voters were to decide on Nov. 6th whether they wanted a toll road inside the Trinity River Park, which is a flood plain. On the pro-toll road side stood the Morning News, the Mayor, 13 of 14 City Council Members, and all the business elite. Although the mayor continued to lie to voters during the campaign, long after the appropriate authorities (like the Army Corps of Engineers) contradicted what he was saying, the Morning News supported him, while failing to show the contradictions. They failed to do simple investigative journalism, like interviewing the Corps of Engineers to verify what the Mayor was saying. On top of that, the Morning News waited until the day after the election (which the pro-toll road side won) to publish articles damaging to the the winning side. In fact, they also sat on damaging information they had a month prior to the election, and waited until post-election to publish it. You can read more about this here: http://www.trinityvote.com/blog/comment.asp?bi=364.
I know several longtime DMN readers who decided to cancel their subscriptions after this political issue, because it was evident that the paper took an elitist attitude, and was not interested in serious journalistic inquiry.
I don't know enough about the newspaper business to know how much this affects readership, but credibility has to be an important factor, right?
Posted by mainbrain
on Thu 6 Dec 2007 at 07:43 PM
Yes it's nice article!
Todd DiRoberto
http://www.newsguide.us/art-entertainment/movies/Todd-DiRoberto-of-American-Satellite-Hosts-Independence-Day-Charity-Event-for-Operation-Bigs/
Posted by amsatpro on Fri 7 Aug 2009 at 05:00 PM
Yes it's nice article!
Todd DiRoberto
http://www.newsguide.us/art-entertainment/movies/Todd-DiRoberto-of-American-Satellite-Hosts-Independence-Day-Charity-Event-for-Operation-Bigs/
Posted by amsatpro on Fri 7 Aug 2009 at 05:01 PM