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.