And now the news ... again

More fallout at The Wilson Daily Times: I learned this afternoon that Eddie Fitzgerald, the longest-serving reporter on the staff, was laid off after 17 year with the paper. Along with a reporter (Laura Keeter) who left and wasn't replaced and another once-filled reporting desk that was never filled after a resignation, that puts the paper down three reporters in the past year or so. Those are in addition to the photographer, city editor and opinion editor who were laid off last fall. That totals six positions eliminated — that's in the neighborhood of a fourth of the newsroom, close to a third if you don't count Sports and Lifestyle.

Reporters  — warm bodies on the street or on the phone to interview people, attend meetings and events — are the basis of news coverage. Along with editors and photographers, they make the product people read. No newspaper can lose so many reporters — and papers across the country have shed a lot of reporters — without affecting news coverage.

I was thinking back today to 1980, when I came to Wilson to take charge of the newsroom. As best I can remember, we had four reporters, maybe five, and two editors who laid out the local pages (all of it in pencil in those days). With the loss of Eddie, the Daily Times now has, by my count, six reporters. Wisely managed and productively used, these six reporters should be able to do a decent job of news coverage, but some things will go uncovered, and the reporters will be kept hopping. That's the challenge of being an editor — using limited resources to cover the news readers want to see while not omitting anything they need to know. With all the layoffs in the industry, editors' jobs have gotten even harder.