Of Publishing and Perishing

I spent my Saturday with friends and former colleagues in the publishing biz. When we talked business, the conversations traveled a familiar path: advertising is down, budgets are tight, jobs are imperiled. 

None of which is surprising to the graybeards in our group. This is the fourth recession of my publishing career.

I went to J school in the late ’70s, when the evening newspapers were going out of business. The experts told us that there were currently more journalism students than there were jobs in journalism — not job openings, but total jobs. 

It took me nine months to get my first job, which was at a start-up alternative newsweekly in St. Louis that paid me $120 a week. My duties included driving a truck 150 miles to the printer’s every Tuesday afternoon. I’d play pinball until the papers started coming off the press, then I’d load…

Tags: Tags: economy, magazines, Media, newspapers