What a day to stop the presses. As the New York Times rubs in, Detroit's dailies ended home delivery on one of the heaviest news days of the year. General Motors and Chrysler will be forcibly restructured by the White House, L. Brooks Patterson wants to steal the Auto Show, Michigan State made the Final Four, and the fact that both papers stopped home delivery is itself national news.
As the headlines make so evident, Detroit has never needed its journalists more, but the recession is putting one paper after another out of print or out of business altogether. The casualties so far include Flint, Saginaw, Bay City, and Detroit, whose papers have all cut daily delivery, and the Ann Arbor News, which closed outright. If the economic downturn lasts much longer (and it's likely to last quite awhile), there may be no newspapers left standing to tell us about it.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
The change we're stuck with
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2 comments:
This is an interesting take on the recession. You should join a recession forum or something and have your great say. I'll follow this blog, btw.
Doesn't this make you want to be a journalist? ...
Kami Pothukuchi said something interesting the other day, which was that one of the few areas where there are jobs in Detroit are those tied to the food system. That's something that Minsu at the Restaurant Opportunities Center has always said (but in terms of the service industry), but it clicked with me - since I've been looking for a job in Detroit, the only ones I've found are with farmers' markets, food banks, and environmental nonprofits. This might be because that's where the foundation dollars are, and it might also be because of where I'm looking online, but the fact that I'm getting a job in the food system is funny.
Needless to say, journalists are going to have to get a little creative. I'm glad that's not my field anymore.
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