Just before I left for vacation last week, 99 of my colleagues here at the Daytona Beach News-Journal were cut from the staff. Needless to say, there’s been lots of rearranging of the deck chairs to try and fill the gaps left by so many employees of the newspaper. This move mirrors cuts by newspapers across the country, including the announcement of cuts at The Chicago Tribune today.
What I’ve found disturbing about this move has been the behind-the-scenes conversations about my hyperlocal site. “Let MyTopiaCafe.com pick up the slack,” “Let people type their own community news,” “Let MyTopiaCafe.com field all the community calls,” have been just a few of the comments that I’ve heard.
I’m now deluged with community news and information from inside the newspaper from staff who can no longer find the space in the print pages. In ordinary times I would be ecstatic that my community site is getting so much attention from staffers. But these comments don’t come with warm fuzzies. More often, they seem tinged with resentment.
I’m beginning to feel that “I’ve met the enemy and it is us.” I’m beginning to wonder — perhaps irrationally given the circumstances, but with some suspicion — that MyTopiaCafe.com has been complicit somehow in the demise of so many people’s livelihoods.
Hear me out: I don’t believe in bloated bureaucracy, either in government or in my local newspaper staff. But as we scramble to recover from the layoffs, the people who are suffering are not only those shown the door but also those in our communities who counted on their local PRINT paper to get information, however scanty. Let us not forget that our audience here in Florida is made up of lots of retirees, some of our core, loyal newspaper readers.
Similar news comes from the print side and hyperlocal print editions launched by major dailies. One colleague described her recent experience, where the large daily resented the community embracing its own hyperlocal paper:
- “The daily decided at first to disassociate themselves by denying the tie between the big and smaller papers. After a time they changed their minds and seemed greedy to launch their big news off the smaller local edition, claiming they had founded it.”
- “When the (staff) cuts started happening, resentment by staffers was apparent towards the little local edition. It was given very little individual attention by advertising, even going a period of time with no ad representation. We were told the little local edition would eventually replace its big sister.”
While I acknowledge the larger issues of the industry — declining print ad revenues, smaller than expected online ad gains, economic woes for local businesses — what I see here is the unwillingness or inability to serve up the chicken dinner diet that readers have come to know and love…the space now owned by many hyperlocal efforts, both independent and media-affiliated.
What it sounds like to me is “Let them eat digital cake!” — which can be less than satisfying, especially to people without access to computers or to getting the word out by technological means.
So is this grand experiment a double-edged sword? One that cuts both enterprise and audience to its core? Are we (hyperlocal sites) the technological tool enabling this bloodbath?
Please comment below with your thoughts and experiences…
