By John Murphy
This is not a boom time for newspapers.
The number of newsroom employees plummeted by 51 percent between 2008 and 2019, according to pewresearch.com. And that was before the coronavirus hit. COVID-19 has hit the newspaper industry like Jim Brown running through a Pop Warner team. There are bodies strewn all about.
This reality was hammered home this week when Gannett, the parent company of The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, announced it’s moving the paper’s printing operations to its Phoenix facility in September.
That’s a big blow. About three dozen employees will lose their jobs. The paper has been printed at its Gene Autry Trail headquarters in Palm Springs since 1989.
Coincidentally, I passed through there right at the start. Back in 1989, during the Desert Sun’s first week in its new plant, I had a job interview. I flew from Monterey down to PS and tried for a job covering tennis.
It was a long time ago, but I think the sports editor’s name was David. He picked me up at the airport in a fancy automobile. It wasn’t his vehicle, he explained, he had won usage of the car for one year in a “closest-to-the-pin” golf contest.
We entered The Desert Sun’s gleaming new palace on a rainy day. We ascended a long flight of stairs and I noticed works of art on the wall. This place has some dough, I thought.
I chatted with David. Then I got a tour. Finally I met with an editor, an older man who I think was named Ray. He knew Ward Bushee, my former editor in Watsonville. So I had an in.
But I did not get the Palm Springs job. It went to a Southern California guy.
When I whiffed in Palm Springs, I didn’t imagine I would someday return to SoCal and work for three newspapers, each one larger than the last. Two of the papers eventually built swanky new multi-floor buildings that were trumpeted in news stories and shown off to visiting dignitaries. One building had a coffee bar, the other a cafeteria.
Those days are gone now, a victim of the Internet and other factors. Those journalistic towers of wealth and hubris have been sold off by parent companies eager to cash in on the real estate values. The shrunken staffs have been dispatched to smaller buildings in more modest locations.
I feel for my journalistic brethren. I’m semi-retired now and no longer sweat out the end of financial quarters, fretting about my job. It’s one good thing about being 64 instead of 34.
Support your local newspaper while you still can. Have the paper delivered or buy a digital subscription. It will illuminate and there’s money-saving coupons, too. Thanks for reading.
Main Street Dog 