National Media

What happened to them? The Writers Guild of America, East Foundation funded a Web site called “Telling Our Stories” that has just launched.

“Some recall the pain of being fired; others the challenges, joys and spirit of newspaper work,”  said M. William Salgani,  past president of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild.

 Here are portions of two stories from the Web site written by former Sun staffers:

 “Death by a thousand cuts”

By Charles Weiss, former Baltimore Sun photographer:

I was handling the photo coverage of major news events that would leave lasting memories, including the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Beltway sniper, the water taxi capsizing tragedy and the demise of Barbaro. It was an honor and a privilege to stand on the front lines of history and to have the responsibility of recording it for the readers of The Baltimore Sun.

After nine years at The Sun, the time had come for my position to be cut. It was not a surprise. It was more a bittersweet relief. I no longer had to bear witness to the deconstruction of my beloved newspaper. Years of buyouts and downsizing had taken their toll. All the fat had long since been trimmed, and now major body parts were being hacked off. A once vital and vibrant place had dimmed and withered, and was now a shadow of its former self. As I patrolled the nearly deserted newsroom, I could imagine what it must have felt like to be on the deck of the crippled Titanic, watching the too few lifeboats drift out of sight as I awaited my inevitable fate. I know nothing lasts forever, but how could a newspaper whose valiant mission it was to be the people’s champion against corruption, to tell their stories of triumph and tragedy, to be that reasoned voice amid the chaos of their daily lives, suddenly lose its appeal to them?

The answer is multifaceted: an imploding economy converging with an information explosion on the Internet and the newspaper industry’s late entry into this new electronic medium. Our readers were seduced by the myriad choices they now had, and who could blame them? With the click of a mouse, there was a world of news and entertainment at their fingertips, and, in our fast-paced society, there was little inclination to wait for a newspaper to show up on the doorstep with news that was possibly dated. The Internet is a new frontier, and, as in the Wild West, boundaries are still evolving and laws are hard to enforce. It is my hope that one day, when the smoke clears, a sense of order will be restored and the surviving newspapers will emerge to reclaim their role as the guardians of truth on this information superhighway.

Currently, countless newspaper journalists have been left on the shoulder of that superhighway; their outdated vehicles have broken down. They are hopeful that a new ride will come along and offer to pick them up. The longer they have to wait, the less choosy they can afford to be about who picks them up, and that is what is truly tragic about what has happened. A staggering number of dedicated reporters, photographers and editors are being forced to find other vocations, and that loss will negatively affect the quality of journalism for years to come. I am still hoping that I can hitch a journalism ride, but the sad reality is that there are way too many hitchhikers out there and just a very limited numbers of seats available. Until then, I guess that I will just be walking with my thumb out for as long as I possibly can.  ☀