The End of an Era

In case you haven't heard, over the past couple of weeks, there have been a lot of changes in the newspaper business here in Alabama; well, in three major cities anyway, Huntsville, Birmingham, and Mobile. All three papers are owned by the same company, Advance Publications

A few weeks ago, al.com launched a revamped site, which quite frankly made my eyes bleed when I looked at it. The color was a bright yellow. So bright, in fact, that you needed sunglasses to even look at the screen. Honestly, I have no idea why "they" decided a re-vamp was needed because I liked the site the way it was before. Now, I have no idea where anything is. All the places I used to go for deals, recipes, etc. have vanished from their former spots and it might take a modern day miracle to locate them. Thankfully, after numerous complaints on Twitter and undoubtedly via email, the color was toned down to a much more bearable beige. (Thank you powers that be!)

A few days after the revamped site was launched, another announcement was made - these three papers would be going from a daily circulation to a three-day circulation beginning in the fall. Say what? Some folks I know were raging mad about this, others were indifferent. The majority of people I know felt like the newspaper here in Huntsville didn't provide enough coverage of local stories. I agree, it's definitely not the newspaper it used to be; but that was pre-internet when people relied on the daily delivery to actually deliver the news. Remember when Huntsville had two papers? A morning and an afternoon paper? Those, my friends, were the days.

This past week, 400 newspaper employees including columnists, photographers, circulation department folks and everyone in between lost their jobs as part of this new al.com/three-days a week circulation nonsense. Call me old fashioned, but I do not think this is a change for the better. I'm not an idiot; I realize that everything is going digital and I have even been a contributor to the change to digital with the purchase of a Kindle. However, there's just something about the loss of a hometown newspaper that is really heartbreaking to me. Maybe I am too close to the situation. After all, I have written for the Huntsville Times for the past four years covering high school football and sometimes basketball and as a result of that work have made many friends, all of whom will not have a job come September 30. That's a lot of local knowledge thrown out the door. As my dear friend Mary put it, " I’m curious how on earth they think they can publish a paper 3 days a week AND have 24/7 updated content with so few people!" Mary's husband also worked for the newspaper and will also be shuffled out the door on September 30. Less than 20 writers were retained - that is really hard concept to grasp.

I know a lot of you don't care much about local high school sports, but there are a lot of people in this city who do and have increasingly complained about the lack of coverage in the newspaper. It wasn't the writers' faults, it was the editors and other upper management who made those cuts. Now I wonder if there will be any coverage at all. "They" axed the one guy who had more local high school sports knowledge than anyone I've ever encountered. As for me, I have no idea what the plan is for those of us who helped with high school football, etc., but even if they do call and ask me about coming back (which I seriously doubt will happen), I will decline their offer, just on principle alone. I also don't want you to think I'm writing this for your sympathy on my behalf - my writing job was just for extra money and I didn't need it to feed my family. What "they" have done to these people and their livelihoods is wrong in my opinion. Sadly, there probably won't be many repercussions for the owners of the newspapers because eventually everyone will become accustomed to the digital editions and very few people will remember what it was like to hold a newspaper in their hand every day.

Change is hard for a lot of people, myself included. In these difficult economic times, there are now 400 more people without a job; 400 people who will more than likely have to relocate their families or make a total career change. To me, that is so heartbreaking. For whatever reason, these lay-offs have struck me to my very core and I have shed more than one tear over the loss of my friends' jobs. Working in a newsroom is like working with a family and it saddens me that I will never be a part of that again. No late night deadlines, late night laugh fests or late night pizzas or late night debates. Truth be told, a lot of them I will never see again because I only saw them in the newsroom in the fall - I wish each of them a fond farewell.

I wanted to bring all of this to your attention primarily to ask that you keep these people in your prayers. Being laid off is difficult in and of itself, but being laid off from an industry that is more or less fading is even harder.