I may just be the luckiest person alive. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the closure of the Seattle P-I and how sad it made me, how it had a special place in my heart, and how depressing the journalism industry is.
Well, I work there now.
It all happened so fast. Two weeks after I wrote that blog entry, the P-I’s executive producer (yeah, that’s the new name for editor-in-chief) asked me to come in for an interview. I had written her an e-mail a few weeks before, curious if there were any opportunities for full-time or freelance. I was exceptionally surprised to actually hear back from her with positive news.
She contacted me on a Tuesday. I went in for my interview Wednesday. And they offered me the job Thursday.
Huh? What had just happened? I had been sitting around home, freelancing and whatnot, for five months. Companies were taking weeks — months — to get back to me about possible jobs. And my luck turned around just like that? In three days?
Well, I accepted the job. It is very exciting to be a part of this experiment. I feel that journalists across the country are keeping an eye on the online-only P-I, to see if it works and is economically viable. We’re the Guinea pigs. But I like that — we’re traversing uncharted ground.
My job is half online producer, half reporter (or, as my official title says, “news gatherer”). I actually haven’t started the producing side — that starts today, Easter. For reporting, I’ll mostly be covering education — both higher ed and K-12 — and a bit of e-retail (or e-tail), such as Amazon.com. I work Sunday through Thursday.
I’ll keep you guys posted as I settle in to this exciting new job. I’ve been there four days, so far, and it is quite busy.
Crazy things can happen.
I’ve been avoiding this topic on my blog, partly because I’ve been too lazy to write about it and partly because I’ve been trying to ignore it. But, obviously, the time has come. It’s time to post a tribute to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
This morning I spent an hour and a half reading the closure coverage in the P-I. Sipping my coffee, it was a ritual I’ve repeated hundreds and hundreds of times. Only this time it was my last. Tomorrow morning, the paper at the doorstep will be The Seattle Times. I’m not exactly happy about that — clearly I’d rather the P-I keep publishing in print.
But I must admit, I am excited to see what happens with the P-I’s transition to online-only. SeattlePI.com will be the nation’s first major experiment in whether a traditional newspaper can cut ties with dead trees and survive on the Web. Everyone in the industry is watching.
Pardon the upcoming romantic memoir.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer was the newspaper I grew up reading. Like so many other people in so many other cities with so many other papers, the P-I was my conduit into the journalism world. I cut my teeth by reading the comics — called, in the P-I, “Coffee Break” — and Mariners coverage in the mid-’90s fooled me into actually reading the newspaper.
But before I even cared about the newspaper’s content, the Seattle P-I had cemented a place in my heart with — what else? — its big, revolving, neon globe. Way, way back in the day, my dad had an apartment in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood. From his balcony you could watch the P-I globe spin. My dad would look out the window and tell me, quoting the globe, “It’s in the P-I.” Yes, there was so much wonder in that big ball of glowing metal.
It was the hometown newspaper. The Seattle P-I, for as long as I’ve been alive, was the underdog. The Seattle Times was the big, mean Doberman. The P-I always seemed closer to the hearts of Seattleites; it had a better finger on the city’s pulse.
I’ve often wondered if my early experiences with the P-I steered my future toward journalism. The allure of newspapers brought me into the Daily Evergreen newsroom at WSU, and though it took a semester for me to find my reporting legs, I ended up falling for journalism. After a year of working for the Evergreen, taking on more and more important stories, I applied for an internship at the Seattle P-I. And got it.
There I was, just a year into my journalism career, working at the newspaper I grew up admiring. The internship did not disappoint — I took what I learned there, and my stronger passion for journalism, back to the Evergreen and ended up as editor-in-chief. That, in turn, landed me my job at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane. And I credit the P-I for all of it.
That’s why today’s closure of the P-I — at least as Seattle has known it for 146 years — hit me hard. It’s not like it was a surprise, since Hearst put the paper up for sale two months ago. And it wasn’t the first major newspaper to die this year, after the closure of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver last month. But the fact that it happened to the P-I — my newspaper — gives it a more personal sting.
I am sad for the 100-plus journalists who lost their jobs today. I know many of them, and many of them were mentors who helped me become a better journalist. I am more sad for Seattle, which has now lost its heart, and a voice. And I am devastated for the state of American journalism, both for its dwindling effectiveness and its incapacity to adapt to the digital age.
For most Americans, the demise of the P-I is yet another drop in the bucket. Many people are saddened at the loss of another important institution. Many people are disaffected, happy to see the Big Bad Media fall apart and excited for the future of online news.
I feel discouraged, only able to watch from the sidelines and so far unable to get another job in journalism. A significant piece of my life dissolved today. However close to home this downward journalism spiral has been, the P-I’s closure brings it closer.
But, as I mentioned above, I am still excited to see what happens. I’m rooting for the success of the online-only P-I. It would give struggling journalists like me, and so many people I know and care about, some much-needed hope in these dismal times.
So, rest in peace, P-I print. And welcome to the new world, P-I online. Godspeed.
It took six months, but I finally sold the Beast. The ol’ ‘88 Suburban and I had some good times, but for the past few years our friendship was strained.
Here, naturally, is a photo tribute to the ‘Burb. It was a good eight years.
If you have been following my blog since February and know a few of my dorky blogging habits, the following announcement shouldn’t surprise you. Because I have now moved to Seattle, my dateline policy has been updated. From this post on out, all entries without a dateline are written in Seattle.
OK, onto the fun stuff.
Due to my boredom and lack of any reason to stay in Spokane, I have moved back to Seattle to live with my parents for a while. It’s a step back in the ol’ walk of life, I know, but it’s a lot cheaper than the alternatives. Because my parents are divorced — and have been since I was 3 — I’ve decided to switch between houses every week. There are a few reasons for this: 1) so I get to see everyone, including my brother; 2) so I don’t get bored out of my mind; 3) well, that’s pretty much the gist of it.
Now that Brad and I have completed a terrifying drive over the mountains — terrifying, thanks to an overloaded U-Haul trailer — and now that I have moved most of my stuff into a storage locker, I can start to settle back into my hometown. (By the way, monthly rent for a 5-by-12 storage locker is a little outrageous.)
I have no real projects or anything. I’m continuing my both exciting and frustrating search for work in the journalism world — applying to at least three a week to I can stay eligible for Washington unemployment. (The checks have not started coming yet. Argh.) I also bought a membership to 24 Hour Fitness, both for the obvious purpose of exercising and the purpose of getting out of the house at least once a day.
Somewhat unrelated — my recent fascination is NPR. Man, that would be fun to do.
EDIT: Oh, I spent a little time today adding a “writing” section to my website. It has links to and excerpts from a few writing examples.
Filed under: Sea Change
I suppose it’s time for another update on what I’m doing. I’ve decided to move back to Seattle sooner rather than later — meaning Monday. I’ve been slowly packing up the apartment this week, ready to load it all into a U-Haul trailer Sunday.
My step-dad, Brad, is flying out Monday morning to help me drive back to Seattle that afternoon. I’m assuming he’ll be driving the Suburban+U-Haul, because I also have my Subaru, but I wouldn’t mind if we did it the other way around.
Good thing I haven’t sold the Beast yet; I can’t tow the trailer with my car. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been trying to sell it. If only Craigslist were working as well for my Suburban as it has this week for some other stuff.
Because of the move, I decided to get rid of my old TV/surround sound set-up and my old couch/ottoman. I listed them both on Craiglist, and they were both gone within 24 hours. It was unreal. Sold the TV, DVD player and speakers for $100. Gave away the couch for free.
So now it’s pretty empty in the living room, especially now that I’ve packed up all my books. There’s just empty bookshelves standing in a very echo-y room, along with my dining-room table. It makes these last few days in Spokane even lonelier.
MAPLE GROVE, Minn. — There was a point during Barack Obama’s acceptance speech last night when the camera focused on an American flag behind him. It was the first time in about five years that I felt proud to see the stars and stripes.
For years, the American flag has stood for things I don’t stand for. Finally, with the results of this election, the Star-spangled Banner now represents hope, it represents promise, it represents progress. It’s time to move forward from the past eight years of corporatism and failed governance. It’s time for America to be the country it can and should be.
We can finally catch up to the rest of the world in dealing with climate change, human rights and peacekeeping. And now we have the opportunity not just to march with the progressive world, but to lead it — in a good way.
I’m joyful that a majority of Americans feel the same way I do. With the 2004 election, I lost faith in a lot of my fellow Americans for re-electing Bush. Finally, the country is starting to wake up and see what a bad position we are in, and see how we can best try to fix it.
As a journalist, I am supposed to remain outwardly neutral in politics. I realize this blog post may appear to overstep those bounds. But, to me, this election was not about politics or partisanship, but about progress. Few people can dispute that the Bush administration turned out to be a horrible choice for this country and the world. It was time for change, and it finally has come.
I consider myself neither a Republican nor a Democrat. But I do consider myself a supporter of progressiveness, social advancement and global responsibility. And, hence, I consider myself a supporter of Obama’s promises.
Thank you, American voters, for restoring my faith in this country.
I’ve applied to a few more jobs since my last post, which should bring the total up to about 17. Not sure, to tell you the truth. But I know I’ve gotten some advice from former coworkers to slow it down a bit, if I actually want to get unemployment benefits.
Which brings me to my point — unemployment, so far, is like a long weekend. Your days are free, you can wake up as late as you want, you can sit around reading the newspaper. But the entire time you feel like you should be doing something more constructive.
But what? Apply for jobs? I’m running out of ones that truly interest me, and I’m waiting to hear back from the others to which I applied. So far I’ve heard back from one, and it has little to do with journalism. I could search for more jobs online, but I’d be starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel and, frankly, it’s starting to get a little depressing.
Another former coworker told me that when she was laid off last year, she applied to nearly 100 jobs listed on JournalismJobs.com and heard back from only two. Wonderful news.
And you know that ominous feeling during weekends, the one where you know it’s going to come to an end, like today’s Saturday afternoon and you know Monday morning’s right around the corner? Well, unemployment has that feeling, but it’s unfounded. Sure, unemployment will end, but when? It’s like a weekend you keep thinking will end but never does.
Oh, maybe I’m starting to get a little too far ahead of myself. I’ve only been officially off the job for a few days, since Wednesday. It’s not like it’s been a week or two weeks or a month. Hopefully, it won’t come to that. Anyway, everything is up in the air these days. Where I’ll be a month from now, I don’t know.
This week, as you may have noticed, I did a small overhaul of nickeaton.net and made it into more of a portfolio site. This blog is hidden from the front page, but I’ll still be writing.
I have gone on a tiring search through the Internets and the networking chain to find prospective jobs. At least ones I find somewhat interesting. So far, I’ve written down 33 openings, and I’ve actually already applied to 11 of them.
Now, not all of them are journalism related. Most of them are, but a few aren’t. Don’t freak, I’m not TRYING to get out of journalism, but I will consider jobs that aren’t at a newspaper but have some journalistic qualities.
Filed under: Adventure, Challenge, Events, Job Search, Journalism, News Industry, Sea Change
Well hey everybody. It’s been a month since I last posted. Part of that is because I’ve been busy at work, and part of it is because I’ve been lazy at blogging. Really lazy.
Obviously my big news is that I am on a list of 25-27 employees expected to be laid off by Oct. 24. But I’ll get to that in a bit.
The past month started out with some real promise. Steve Smith, former editor-in-chief of The Spokesman-Review, asked Brian Immel and me to kick off a big project. We were charged with taking the popular SportsLink blog and spinning it off into its own website, with the goal of making it profitable. That was going to be our job — I’d no longer be in the sports department.
The project got going slowly because Brian was busy working on the Spokesman’s yet-to-be-launched new website. So I continued my sports multimedia producer job. This included another new project, The Mike & Greg Show — a weekly video with two high-school sports reporters in which they make their game picks for the upcoming weekend. So far, we’ve done four episodes (1, 2, 3, 4).
Last Monday, Brian and I finally started having some good conversations on what we wanted to do with SportsLink. We wanted text-message updates, better play for videos, customizable home pages — we were even toying with the idea of making it a social networking site. (I know, it’s a dreaded term. There’s just no better one.)
Then came Wednesday, and everything came to a halt.
Layoffs. For me, out of the blue. I expected to get at least a little warning that layoffs might be coming. It was quite sudden — a morning e-mail announcing an all-staff meeting, rumors throughout the day, then the gauntlet came down.
Twenty-one union-covered newsroom employees were on the layoff list. Plus four to six managers. All said, 25 to 27 people gone from the newsroom. That’s about one-quarter of the staff. It’s devastating. Amid the turmoil, Steve also resigned. He had for months told people there wouldn’t be more layoffs under his watch. I’m glad he followed through.
The layoffs, as governed by an agreement between management and the union, must be done by inverse seniority. The majority of us on the list are 20-something journalists from all departments. Three of us are from sports. Wednesday night, a group of us gathered at Lisa’s and my place for some commiseration.
The next day, assistant managing editor Carla Savalli announced her resignation. And the exodus had started.
People have two weeks to submit voluntary resignations, which would help save the jobs of some of the people on the layoff list. I’m not holding out too much hope. And that gets me to, well, me.
When the news was announced, I didn’t know how to take it. I knew my name would be on that list; I’m the second-least-senior member of the sports staff. After Steve’s meeting, I immediately ducked out of the newsroom and headed home.
But now it’s sinking in. For the past few days, I’ve been working on getting my stuff together to send out job applications. Lisa graciously redesigned my résumé for me, I uploaded a few of my videos to Vimeo and I gathered together a bunch of print clips for my portfolio.
Really, I’ve started to see this as an exciting challenge, a chance to go somewhere else without feeling bad about leaving the Spokesman. I’m looking not just near my hometown Seattle, but elsewhere in the country. I’m not limiting myself to just print or just video, I’m broadening my scope. And, yes, that means broadening my scope past newspapers — though that’s where the majority of my searching has taken me.
I will soon make a new page for this website to function as a sort of video portfolio. And I may start putting up some print clips. But this means I may hide the blog for a little bit, to keep it out of the eyes of potential employers. I don’t think there’s anything that could hurt my chances here, but it’s not worth the risk. If I hide the blog, I’ll be sure to tell you all how to access it.
In the meantime, thanks to those of you who have called or texted me to check in. I’ll keep everyone posted.
I bought a car Wednesday.
No, not a brand-new car, but one that’s new to me. Besides, it’s essentially new, anyway.
It’s a 2007 Subaru Impreza 2.5l wagon with a five-speed manual transmission. It has 7,500 miles on it and 27 months left on the factory warranty. It’s supposed to get up to 32 mpg on the highway (compared to 16 with the Beast). And I bought it for $14,750 (plus tax).
Thank you, Craigslist.
But I can’t drive it yet. The seller’s bank has yet to mail the title to my bank. I can’t register and license it without the title. So for now, I’ve got this new car in my driveway but I’m still driving my ‘88 Suburban.
