Newspaper careers crumble, but public needs news

It has been 10 years since I was employed by a newspaper (this once weekly writing gig does not qualify as “employed”). But I cannot help but listen to the crumbling of the industry where I spent 33 years of my life.

The latest crash I heard came in the form of a blog post by David Menconi announcing his layoff from the Raleigh News & Observer. In that post, Menconi, who had covered the music scene for the N&O for 28 years, cited the largest percentage destruction of a newsroom I had ever heard about, an 84 percent cut in newsroom staff: “More than a decade of layoffs, buyouts and attrition whittled our once-mighty newsroom staff of 250 down to around 40 survivors.”

It’s more common to read of newsroom cuts of 25 or 50 percent as newspapers slash costs to compensate for drastically reduced advertising revenue. Newspaper advertising revenue had been declining nationwide for 20 years, but the 2008 Great Recession, combined with the whiplash-inducing switch from print to digital advertising (Google and other online amalgamaters are making billions while newspapers, which do most of the reporting work, are laying off the reporters who expose the news).

Nearly all of the newspaper employees I worked with or knew through conferences, training meetings and associations are no longer in the business. Print-only news reporters are dinosaurs as remaining newspapers try to shift their focus to online readers and the almighty millennials. A recent column in the N&O (which we’ve subscribed to for nearly 40 years) infuriated my wife, as she read between the lines that the newspaper doesn’t care about any readers over age 40 or anyone who prefers a print publication to digital. The columnist seemed to be saying, “You old folks are going to die soon, anyway, so we don’t care about you.”

I worry about my former colleagues and peers who gave their lives to reporting the news in print and now are cut loose to drown in the sea of online advertising and video news, but I also worry about what this means to American democracy. The framers of the Constitution established freedom of the press as a fundamental right for one simple reason: Voters who don’t read the news can’t make wise decisions on election day. Without thorough reporting by professional journalists, the public cannot keep watch on government officials and government activities. Democracy is based on an informed electorate. As the Washington Post’s new slogan puts it, “Democracy dies in darkness.”

On a trip to Wilmington last weekend, I picked up a copy of the Wilmington StarNews. Among the other news in the Saturday edition was a report on the retirement of Si Cantwell, an editor and reporter with the StarNews for nearly 40 years. In his final column, he reminisced about his life in the newspaper business, then made this plea to readers: “I don’t worry about print readership diminishing. I worry about apathy. I worry about citizenry no longer interested in keeping tabs on elected officials, who don’t care about school redistricting or tax rates or film incentives. We still care about those things at the StarNews, along with restaurant openings and local sports scores, and I believe we provide the best coverage of that.”

I never crossed paths with Cantwell during my newspaper career, but we are singing from the same hymnal.

Young adults see marriage as unimportant

A new poll indicates that marriage is not particularly popular among the younger generation — the folks that, traditionally, would be tying the knot right about now. It's no secret that the age of marriage has been increasing for decades. Earlier in the 20th century, when most men went straight to the workforce after high school and most women were wed by then or earlier, the age of marriage hoovered around age 20. With increases in post-secondary education postponing the time available for building families, and with economic upheaval making marriage and families less attainable, the age of marriage has increased into the later 20s.

It should come as no surprise that today's young adults are less enchanted with marriage and less focused on getting married. For some, marriage might seem like an unattainable dream; for others, it's irrelevant to their careers or their carefree lifestyle because, if nothing else, marriage adds duties and responsibilities to life. For some young adults, duties and responsibilities are not desirable burdens, and the pleasures of marriage and parenthood are available outside of marriage and even without the responsibilities.

This is a marked change in attitude and expectations. My late mother-in-law used to ruefully tell of how my father-in-law proposed to her. After a few dates, he told her, "I guess we'll have to get married." They had found each other; marriage was the logical and inevitable result. That expectation is rapidly disappearing. Not only is marriage no longer the expected result of a relationship, it might not even be considered.

That seismic change is foreboding. Marriage and families have been the building blocks of society and civilization for centuries. In different ways in different cultures, the civil and religious rites of marriage sealed the responsibilities of spouses and parents in a way that benefited civil society and even the economy. The vaunted "Protestant work ethic" was all about taking responsibility for supporting family, not competing with other workers.

If today's young adults avoid the bonds of marriage and its responsibilities, fewer adults will take on the burdens of parenting and civic leadership. Fewer adults will feel a need to build policies that benefit the next generation and that protect marriages and families. Without marriage and family, it is easy to live for the moment and not worry about what tomorrow might bring. Without a commitment to children and grandchildren, public education becomes less important, economic opportunity less essential, neighborhood quality less meaningful and moral conduct less desirable.

If marriage becomes archaic, society will suffer.