As technology advances and ability to connect improves, some
things are bound to die off like old leaves falling from the tree.  The old fashioned way of getting news, the
newspapers printed on paper, are dying off like dinosaurs.  But the technology is not the only thing to
blame for that. It is the essence of the newspaper business that escalates the
soon-to-be-seen departure of this medium. I have witnessed it with my own eyes.

About a month ago I had an interview at a local newspaper in
Milpitas after I applied for a Reporter position there. The editor explained
how things work.  “You would be writing
4-6 stories per week”  - this is a
standard workload for weeklies. Daily newspapers require reporters to write 1-2
stories a day.  Everything sounded good
until we talked about the salary. $28,000 a year. Wow.  This would not be enough to cover rent, let
along food. Forget clothes, car and other expenses.

“You look bombed out,” he said to me, seeing me react to
that number.
“Well, of course. How do you expect anyone to survive in the bay
area on that kind of salary?”
“It is pretty standard starting salary anywhere
in the newspaper business,” he replied.

I looked at him somewhat startled. Then
my eyes stopped at the fresh copy of their newspaper, sitting in front of
me.  I opened it and started flipping
through pages.

“I don’t understand,” I said, “Doesn’t the newspaper make
good money? I see ads everywhere. “
“Oh yeah,” the editor replied, “It does.”
 “Then why don’t they pay
a decent salary to the reporters?” I asked.
“Because the newspapers owners want to make a lot of money,
” he said.

There it was, the proof of the theory taught in my journalism
school. The buying out of local newspapers by giant corporations, the consolidation,
the monopolization of the industry, the cutting down on cost of producing
news….the cutting of the reporters…  The
book we read in school was called “Rich Media, Poor Democracy” by Robert
McChesney.  It describes the evolution of
media business in United States and how this monopolized industry has no place
for real journalism.  There is a Youtube
video summarizing the main idea of the book. Pretty depressing. I know a lot of
students who quit journalism major after that. I didn’t. 

I guess I believed in the journalism profession even though
I knew it would be a struggle. But I didn’t know that newspaper owners would be
that apparent about not taking reporters seriously. I mean, common, can you
take anyone’s work seriously and pay them minimum wage? I think the guys
flipping burgers get more respect than that… (and more money?)  Who else can afford working as a reporter
other than high school or, maybe, college students? Anyone with a degree and
any kind of self respect would have to pass.

So there it was. Disappointment.

 At the same time, I
realized. I’m witnessing the death of American newspaper. It is not the
technology and internet that does it. It is the owners themselves. They do not
want or care about attracting new talent. They get by on the work of exhausted
underpaid students or hopeless romantics who are in there not for the money,
but for the idea. So how long can this last?

Check out  Media News
Group, the owner of the Milpitas newspaper and many, many, many others.