Journalists struggling to survive

Gannett, the publisher of USA Today (my former employer) and dozens of other newspapers, shed 8,100 jobs since 2007, according to Gannett Blog, which is published by a former employee, Jim Hopkins. The blog apparently has a large following and is worth a look for anyone interested in the media business.

That 8,100 number surprised me. It's about twice as many job losses as I previously thought. Read about it here.

Pictured at the top of this post are Gannett headquarters and USA Today in McLean, Va. -- two towers joined by one of the largest lobbies you will ever see in an office building. The pricey complex in a high-end part of Fairfax County is relatively new. Some refer to it as the "crystal palace." However, the palace has a low occupancy rate of late, not that all or even most of those 8,100 job losses came at this campus. The job losses were spread throughout the country. List of Gannett newspapers.

While the building is impressive and was a nice place to work, this level of splurging doesn't take place at other Gannett properties. For instance, here's the office of the Gannett-owned Daily Times in Salisbury, Md., a modest-at-best place where I worked in 1980, before it was bought by Gannett. It apparently hasn't changed much and is typical of smaller newspaper buildings.

Gannett has always been known for running lean operations at their community newspapers. But so have other media companies. Thomson Newspapers owned The Daily Times when I worked there and paid and staffed very poorly, despite fat profits from lots of paid advertisements and decent circulation on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Of course, those were the days when newspapers had high-profit margins -- higher than most businesses. Not sure exactly where the profits went. Most folks in the newsroom made less than first-year school teachers. That hasn't improved much over the years.

The Gannett building in McLean might give the impression that journalists are rolling in cash. I can say with certainty that isn't true, which makes all the job losses in that industry even worse because many laid-off employees couldn't pad their savings accounts enough to weather this storm. Still, many journalists are hoping they can re-enter the field once the economy improves.