Sad day for journalism and community

Sad. That's about all I can say about the news, confirmed late this afternoon, that The Wilson Times had laid off another 15 people. Second- or third-hand, I've learned the names of a number of them, though I've not seen a comprehensive list. Good people, some outstanding people. I feel very sad for all of them. This didn't have to happen.

The downturn in the economy has hurt ad sales at newspapers, magazines and TV stations across the country, but the cuts at the local newspaper go beyond an industry-wide loss of advertising revenue. Some papers have been decimated — i.e, they have lost one in 10 of their staff — but the Wilson Times, apparently, has cut about half of its staff. With the 15 cut today, payroll has slipped below 50 employees, it would appear, from a peak of around 90 a few years ago. I'm wondering whether the skeleton staff that is left can produce a newspaper six times a week. There has been no announcement about reducing publication days, but that surely must be the next step, to go from daily (six days a week) to five or fewer days a week. Cutting publication days would help the harried news staff keep up and would reduce newsprint costs, which are the second-largest expense for newspapers. When the first and second round of cuts came through, I reassured some people that, even with those cuts, the newsroom staff was bigger than when I had come to the paper in 1980. That's no longer the case. With this latest round of cuts, the news staff is the smallest it's been since at least the 1950s, perhaps the 1940s.

It's a sad day for some very loyal and capable employees, but it's also a sad day for the community. I've been accused of being "old school," and I certainly am in regard to newspapers. I believe a good newspaper is essential to a community. I was proud to be a part of a good newspaper in a good community just a few years ago. But today I'm sad that hard work and loyalty have been rewarded with layoffs. Bad decisions and unwise expenditures in the past have led to this day of reckoning, but the people who will suffer most are not the ones who made those bad decisions.

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.